Breastfeeding - myths of limiting your diet

[ShirleyPhallus]

I came across this chart which led me to this webpage on what to eat while breastfeeding, but more to what to avoid. It recommends such a lot of shit, including sticking to only plain water, not eating most green vegetables, limiting wheat etc.

I can’t believe this misinformation is still being pedalled like this. Women should be supported in breastfeeding and not told to totally limit their diet unnecessarily!

here’s the link (albeit not a medical one but lots of similar info out there!) www.dianabakerphotography.com/breastfeeding-what-not-to-eat

In my experience eating gassy foods did make DD very unsettled. I remember eating a pizza with peppers on when she was a couple of weeks old, and she wouldn't settle until 4 am.

Yes it's bullshit. Only true cmpa kids have an issue.

That’s absolutely batshit

and she doesn’t seem to have any qualifications to be doling out her ‘advice’

i think that she thinks the best diet is a ‘simple Scottish one’

its a mystery how the 99% of the global population not living in Scotland managed to feed their children!
(and doesn’t Scotland have a really bad issue with health and low life expectancy..?)

It's true that what we eat gets into our milk. Otherwise why would women with allergic babies be recommended to cut out those foods?

It’s so much rubbish. Really unhelpful. Milk is synthesised from your blood not your gut. Windy food doesn’t impact on your blood or milk.

To the posted above - it was just the baby not the pizza (hope you didn’t miss out on it for too long!)

I just eat normally 🤷‍♀️ Neither of my kids has been allergic to anything so it's been fair game!

She goes over the top but is not essentially, incorrect.

Many women find that what they eat when b/f affects their baby's digestive system. Often, small modifications are needed. Nothing as severe as what she recommends obviously (she's a bit hysterical about herbal teas!) but it's common for some foods to have an adverse effect.

The 'Scottish diet' sounds like an American way of indicating a certain type of food; not what people living in Scotland actually eat!

So, definitely OTT and unnecessary in part but at its essence isn't completely wrong either.

I bf 5 babies, each for a good long while and never once thought twice about what I was eating 🤷‍♀️

She is incorrect - traces of protein transfer and cause problems s for the highly allergic. Some deficiencies are represented hence the need for good vit d levels but a diet that nourishes the mother does the same for baby.
Diet needs no modification unless you have a highly allergic baby, are deficient in vit D or are eating large amounts of mercury accumulating fish.

Those foods won’t make more milk either and you can wash down your curry with a bear. Indeed I usually did. Delicious. The only criteria needed to appraise my diet while bf.

Highly flavoured foods can affect the taste of milk - through diffusion small components of what you eat enter the bloodstream. As this is so broken down, for most babies, it causes no digestive issues at all; for some it can affect allergies, and for others, they can be sensitive to the taste of the milk.

Absolutely this table and her advice is unhelpful - there's no need at all to be restrictive (I never was) but at its core there's some correct information!

This is the perfect way to discourage women from feeding for an extended period. There's just so much rubbish on the Internet about babies though - making an industry about simple things and turning them into 'leaps' and 'sleep windows'.

I'm not sure but when I cut out dairy while bf it did help my dc who are still dairy intolerant. I was advised to do that by my GP. I didn't cut anything else out and wouldn't have cut dairy chocolate out if GP hadn't said to.
I've never heard of the list in the OP though.

I pretty much lived on bread and jam when I was breastfeeding as I was permanently ravenous and had little money. It was delicious. Other than that, a lot of home made soup and cheese. My children grew up big, strong and healthy.

Mind blowing ignorance peddled about breastfeeding based on nothing scientific. It drives me mad and is one reason I had to give up peer supporting. It got to the point where every mum that came through the door had been convinced that their baby had allergies when they were just being a baby. Unfortunately formula companies have filled the gaps in knowledge of HCPs There is no evidence that allergens reach breastmilk in enough quantities to cause a reaction in most infants. That is what the current research says. Yet saying it’s like some kind of blasphemy. There’s just so little understanding of breastmilk and breastfeeding in general and until the science proves something I think we need to be very cautious, as we would in every other area of health and nutrition.

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196813/milk-allergy-guidelines-cause-overdiagnosis-babies/

Where did you get the bear from...😂

The team also found seven of the nine guidelines advised breast-feeding women to cut out all dairy from their diet if their child has a suspected cow’s milk allergy. However, their analysis of 13 studies of breastmilk composition suggests less than one millionth of the protein from cow’s milk travels through to breast milk, and this would be too small to trigger a reaction in most allergic children.
^^
Dr Robert Boyle, Consultant Allergy Specialist and lead author of the research from Imperial’s National Heart and Lung Institute, explained: “Many infants who are labelled as having milk allergy don’t have the condition. Having a child with suspected milk allergy can be a stressful time for any family. Misdiagnosing milk allergy could lead to another condition with similar symptoms being missed, or breast-feeding mothers needlessly following restricted diets – or even stopping breast-feeding altogether. It can also lead to families and the NHS unnecessarily paying for expensive specialist formula.”

How would you know it was the peppers that caused the baby to be unsettled and not just the fact she was a baby of a few weeks old?

Exactly

How would you know it was the peppers that caused the baby to be unsettled and not just the fact she was a baby of a few weeks old?

That was just one example. DD was very colicky every time I ate windy foods. The pizza was the first time it became apparent. The midwife said that DD's digestve system was too immature to cope (she was born a little early), so, yes in my case windy foods did cause problems.

I appreciate it won't be the same for everyone, but it was an issue for me and also for my sister when she was feeding her babies. In her case it was onions and garlic that cause the issues.

Ha pink flip flops - a bear🤦‍♀️

I ate normally, even the odd half glass of wine. I did avoid caffeine (just the occasional cup of tea) because at the time it was a no no (since debunked) however never even heard of avoiding most of those - what would you even eat? Vegetables are good for you!

All that proves RampantIvy is that your Mw knew nothing about how milk is made, allergy research or how to support bf. Onions and garlic make no difference. Again the conpunds that cause digestive issue are not in your blood or breast milk.

Plus believe it or not they breastfeed babies in countries like India where spices are used in cooking all the time! In fact spices are used in Ayurvedic medicine too, practiced by many

I had a highly allergic baby. I had to cut out so much from my diet otherwise she screamed all night, covered in a rash.

She's still got lots of allergies as an adult.