Breastfeeding and food

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Food is life. When you are pregnant, you try to eat a little bit more but in a healthier way. Because being a parent who does annoying things for their kid’s sake starts early. You usually avoid foods like sushi, cold meats (because of toxoplasmosis), certain cheese (at least in France as there are a lot of cheeses that are made with raw milk and could contain salmonella) or drinks such as alcohol, coffee, tea…

Then you have baby, and you go back to eating “normally”. If you decide to breastfeed baby, you might ask yourself if you should keep doing what you were doing while pregnant. This question is quite logical, although masochistic, as you are once again directly providing for your child.

The answer is : yes eat conscientiously and eat everything. Your child will thank you since he will have tasted a lot of different things through you. It is proven that breastfed children are less difficult with food later in life.

Having breastfed my own three children for a rather long time each, here are a few tips I picked up along this precious, wonderfully exhausting, time.

Breastfeeding and food: what to try to avoid or eat less of

There are certain foods that you might want to avoid, or perhaps eat or drink less of than you used to before breastfeeding or the pregnancy. Why ? Because they can end up irritating – in some way – your child’s digestion, or behavior (although as he grows he will probably show his normal obnoxious personality soon enough), or even worse cut down your milk supply !

Those foods are mainly :

• Beverages containing caffeine or theine such as coffee, different types of sodas, energy drinks or tea. The caffeine can cause digestion issues for your baby, or the baby can become more agitated. It is recommended to stick to a maximum of 3 cups a day.

• Alcohol : despite what you might think alcohol can go through to your baby.

• Products containing phytosterols (that help reduce cholesterol) : certain types of margarine for instance.

• Products made with soy : because the phytoestrogen goes into the milk. 1 per day is the maximum recommended.

• Dairy products : stomach issues with your baby can be caused by the ingestion of dairy products. A lot of breastfeeding moms found that cutting out dairy products from their diet helped relieve their colicky babies.

• Certain plants such as parsley : this plant, in large quantities, is said to lower milk supply. It’s also the case with mint and sage.

Foods that will give a stronger taste to the milk

Certain food can also “perfume” your milk, and it has been reported that babies sometimes have a hard time with the following :

• cauliflower,
• broccoli,
• cabbage,
• asparagus,
• spicy things.

This being said, as usual, it depends on the baby. Retracing your recent meals can sometimes help understand why the baby is acting up. You can then simply cut certain things out to see if anything changes in baby’s behavior.

How to increase your milk quantity

your daily liquid intake :

You should drink at least 1.5 liters per day. I used to drink a lot more for my first, and I exaggerated. Drinking a lot more will not transform you into a magical mom cow, but it can definitely hurt you in the end (that poor bladder / kidneys for instance). If you are thirsty drink plenty, remember to also drink regularly even if you don’t feel thirsty. A tip to make it easier is to always drink a big glass of water before you start breastfeeding or have a bottle of water with you when you are breastfeeding.

your tiredness/exhaustion :

There isn’t much I can add to this. We all know how tiring this gets. There isn’t much you can do aside from at least trying to nap from time to time, or just resting and accepting that the house will look like crap, or that you won’t shower before the end of the day (or at all), or you won’t have time to cook a nice meal grab something to eat. Just have someone feed you a pizza once in a while.

your stress level or anxiety :

Same as with tiredness. I’ve been there, I still am most of the time. We all get anxious or stressed out those first few months. It is important to try to rationalize and think about something else. Try to watch something that makes you laugh or just feel happy when you breastfeed, listen to your favorite music, or a podcast, or read a good book or a funny blog (like mine). Tune the brain out.

the food you eat :

As I’ve mentioned in this article, food such as parsley is well known for cutting down milk supply.

One the other hand, luckily, certain vegetables or plants can increase your milk supply such as : basil or fennel. Fennel is a great vegetable that you can eat in soup, cook in the oven, boil, cut and sauté…etc.

Beer unfortunately does not increase milk supply, contrary to the common assumption. You can, however, try brewer’s yeast. You can also try :  dried fruits such as hazelnuts, almonds, whole cereal, almond milk.

Drinks that can help increase your milk quantity

There are lactation infusions that can up your milk supply. Let me tell you that the wide majority of them taste like boiled grass, and they can be quite hard to swallow.

I found a not so disgusting infusion that I felt was really helping my milk supply : it’s called Light Digestion (Jardin Bio). It is made with star anise, fennel and green anise. What’s even better is that I was later told that fennel (and star anise) were in fact also known for helping with stomach issues and were recommended for colicky babies. I don’t know if my babies were not colicky or if, as I was drinking this infusion every other day, it was soothing them. I thought that my first born was colicky. When I think about it now, I do not think he was : I think the “problem” was that I was learning how to be a mom and he was my guinea pig. A cute one of course.

Other drinks that can be tried :

– Herbal teas with anise or cumin,
– Galactogil,
– Weleda herbal tea.

Here is one herbal concoction recipe that my great midwife gave me. You can make it yourself, or ask a professional (a pharmacist made it for me) to blend it for you :

– 25 grams of hop cones,
– 25 grams of cumin seeds,
– 25 grams of leaves of white deadnettle,
– 25 grams of fennel seeds,
– 50 grams of galega officinal (also known as goat’s rue or professor-weed).

I love how it looks and kinda sounds like a witch’s potion. Divide this into 4 equal servings, so that you take this on a 4 day period. Boil a liter of water (34 fl.oz) and put a quarter of the mixture in the water. Stop the boiling. Let infuse for no more than 5 minutes. Filter. Drink Try to swallow. Good luck with that !

In the end, everything in reasonable portions. Don’t overdo it. Do not overthink it. Don’t be annoyed. You got this mama !