Contents
How is milk made?
Before we move on to nutrition itself, a few words about food formation. You will see what this knowledge is for in a moment.
Milk production is a long-term process that begins during pregnancy. Food is produced in the milk alveoli, which are located in the breast glands of a woman. These follicles are made of special cells – lactocytes, which have the ability to take the appropriate components from the mother’s blood. Then, from these ingredients, they synthesize food, a substance with high nutritional value that stimulates the child’s development and supports its immune system. The milk follicles end with milk ducts that connect to form pathways that lead the milk to the top of the nipple.
As you can see, breast milk is made from the blood and not directly from the food the mother digests. This means that if, for example, a woman is puffed up by the seeds of legumes, it is not the case that the bloating substances simply pass into the child’s digestive tract during feeding, causing colic, for example. We won’t find these substances in breast milk anymore, because her body has already managed to process these (and other) compounds.
Elimination diets and the well-being of an infant
An elimination diet is a diet in which products that cause undesirable ailments are excluded (permanently or temporarily). Although we have known for a long time that lactation in a healthy mother and a healthy child does not automatically require a restrictive diet, it still happens that young mothers are bombarded with good advice from friends or family members. According to them, introducing dietary restrictions is to protect the child from colic or allergies. In practice, however, they can primarily contribute to the formation of nutritional deficiencies in the mother.
The use of an elimination diet by a nursing mother is justified only if the child’s allergy has been confirmed by appropriate tests by a doctor.
Colic occurs in children primarily due to the immaturity of their digestive system. It has nothing to do with what a nursing woman will eat. The studies do not confirm the effectiveness of the use of elimination diets in the prevention of colic. Infant colic should not be the only reason why breastfeeding should be stopped.
Another popular myth is the use of allergen-free diets that could potentially trigger an allergy in the child. For this reason, some young mothers preventively remove a large part of the products from their menu, which is not needed. Studies have shown that what the mother eats does not contribute to the emergence of allergies, eczema or asthma in the infant. Lack of exposure to a variety of foods (including those to which allergies are statistically frequent in society) may, on the other hand, contribute to a higher incidence of allergies in the later years of a child’s life.
3 groups of products most often eliminated unnecessarily
1. All the most popular allergens – such as dairy products, strawberries, tomatoes, nuts, celery, fish
As it has already been mentioned – removing them does not protect against the emergence of allergies in a child. Moreover, dairy is one of the sources of calcium, deficiencies of which are relatively common in lactating women. Remember that then the body uses nutrients to produce food first, making the mother more vulnerable to deficiency.
When it comes to fish, choose those that have as little mercury as possible, e.g. farmed or wild salmon, sprats, trout, Atlantic mackerel or eel. As much as possible, it is worth including in your diet appropriate fatty sea fish, thanks to which the supplementation of omega-3 fatty acids, the supply of which we pay attention to during lactation and generally when formulating guidelines for healthy eating, will not be necessary.
2. Peas, beans, onions and garlic
According to advisers, these products will burden the baby’s digestive tract and cause colic, and the onions and garlic will additionally discourage the baby from eating because of their smell. I have dealt with the myth of the colic above. As for the intensely flavored foods, if the mother consumed them during pregnancy, the baby became acquainted with them thanks to the amniotic fluid. The taste of, for example, garlic will not bother him.
3. Fried products
They should, of course, be avoided – but only because they are generally unhealthy, especially if we use large amounts of fat for frying, the fat is no longer fresh and our favorite dishes are the breaded ones. All this puts a burden on the mother’s digestive tract, and additionally has a negative effect on the cardiovascular system and may contribute to the appearance of neoplasms.
However, I would like to emphasize once again – all this applies to the situation where your child is healthy and you are using the elimination diet preventively. If there are medical indications as to the exclusion of individual products, then of course you should not delay removing them from the menu.
General recommendations
As you can see, it is not necessary to automatically eliminate products or their entire groups during lactation. When it comes to ingredients that should not actually appear in the menu of a nursing woman, it is primarily alcohol (which passes into the food), large amounts of coffee (caffeine also goes to milk) and processed products that contain large amounts of artificial additives, dyes. , preservatives, flavor enhancers, etc.
Nutrition for lactating women is simply a standard, healthy, well-balanced diet that is proportionately based on all levels of the food pyramid. The mother should eat according to her preferences, just remembering that her menu should be varied and rich in unprocessed products rich in nutrients. When it comes to energy demand, compared to the standard one, it increases by about 500 kcal in the first six months of lactation.
Bibliography:
https://1000dni.pl/0-6-miesiecy/co-moze-jesc-kobie…
https://www.bebiprogram.pl/zywienie-mamy/w-czasie-…
https://www.hafija.pl/2013/08/dieta-mamy-karmiacej…
https://www.mp.pl/pacjent/pediatria/karmienie-pier…
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