Breastfeeding and the mother's diet

[petisa]

I'm 38 weeks pregnant with dd2 and I had a horrible time with bf the first time around and gave up after only a week

I'm really keen to bf successfully this time, and as part of my preparation to give us the best start possible I have been lurking around this board and making notes. (And it's been very useful and informative!)

One thing I'm really not clear on is whether a mother's diet has any real effect on her milk. Is it really true that you can give your baby wind by eating certain things or is it just a myth? Does eliminating certain foods from your diet really make a difference? Or is it just that some small babies are windy due to their gut not being mature, and then as the gut matures they are able to cope better with milk, so that it just appears to the mother that eliminating, say dairy for example, from her diet has "solved the problem"? And if your diet does affect your bm do mothers with a crap diet have crap bm then??

Is there any scientific evidence proving that diet affects bm?

TIA - I'd really love to hear your opinions!

From what I know (and I'm not an expert), the mother's diet has very little effect on the composition/quality of milk, but more of an impact on the health of the mother. Essentially, all nutrients will go into the milk first, so any deficiencies will be felt by the mother.

But I've never had a problem BFing... so I'm not really one to ask.

I really hope it works out for you this time though...

petisa, I am probably the wrong person to answer as I feel very strongly that mothers should know their diet has no impact on their breastfeeding at all. Individual experience and observation may be individual, however.

Crap diet does not = crap breastmilk - not at all. The science is clear on this, and in fact it goes back some time, because it springs from research done in the 70s in developing countries where it had been observed for some time that breastfed babies were hale and hearty and grew well (until they stopped breastfeeding), despite their mothers being often marginally nourished. Analysis of breastmilk samples, comparing mothers in (I think) the Gambia and mothers in (I think) Sweden, showed no difference in quality. That's just one study - there have been a few but none that I know of recently.

There is evidence that highly allergic babies do react to some things in their mother's diet (blood in stools; failure to grow well) but this is quite rare.

As for colic/wind, there is a lot of anecdotal stuff around - your point that as the gut matures symptoms improve anyway is a good one. There is not much science around this, apart from a handful of papers linking colic to dairy in the mother, or excessive caffein. But it does appear that a few babies do seem to react to some foods. There is no justification for telling all mothers they can't eat cabbage, or tomatoes, or orange juice or whatever - the vast majority of mothers can eat what they like :)

my lovely hv told me that there was a study done on starving women which found that the quality of their breastmilk wasnt affected. it was 'spot on' despite here own malnutrition.

i have no links for you however :(

Sorry I haven't been back to this thread sooner, I hadn't been online so far today. Thanks so much for your replies and for your best wishes Breastmilk!

It's interesting that you all say diet doesn't seem to have any effect on bm, as as you say tiktok, I have read a lot of anecdotal stuff on here about cutting stuff out of your diet, and I have a few friends who are v sure that cutting diary out of their diet improved their baby's colic. All v confusing. I do tend to believe that it can't make that much difference. Isn't bm supposed to vary in taste according to what you eat though?

Yes - flavourings do affect breastmilk. This is a good thing :)

Although your diet does not affect the quality of your milk, the mother's diet can be an issue in an allergic baby.

My SIL has not had any dairy or soya for the last year. If she has diary her baby has sick. At the start he was puking up each feed, they went to see specialist, diagnosed reflux and cows milk intolerance. Once she cut out diary (as recommended) he was much better. Every so often she is supposed to try dairy again and each time the puking has started again along with diahorea. She was told to cut out soya to as doctor was worried about baby developing soya allegy.

My DS is dairy intolerant (well cow's milk protein) so I can't have dairy or soya otherwise his ezcema flares up, he gets windy/sick and his silent reflux kicks in. Whilst EBF I was a bit dubious but cut it out and it made a huge difference. I had the odd slip and it would flare up again.

Once I started him on solids, I tried him on dairy and soya - even worse reaction although it is getting better as he gets older (as it's not an allergy, he should hopefully grow out of it so every month I give him a tiny bit of dairy to check).

As for everything else - well my DS also reacts to tomatoes and other acidic fruits when given as solids. I didn't cut them out of my diet when EBF though!

I think that as he has reflux, his digestive system is a bit more sensitive anyway - he gets really windy with green veg and pulses, even small amounts! So none of that before bedtime.

I would in the beginning maybe cut down on tea or coffee, but you will soon realise if it has an affect or not. with ds I could drink tea late at night and he would sleep well. with dd I can only have one cup in the morning or she will not sleep at night.

I haven't noticed any difference in milk supply if I have eaten etc.

I do seem to feel hungrier more often and definitely feel crap myself if I try to cut calories too much, but DS is not affected.

DS1 did suggest the other day while I was eating chocolate (again) that I should jump up and down so DS2 could have a choc milk shake.

I think the flavour does change and if I eat a lot of asparagus then DS2 gets asparagus wee!

Yes when DD was a few weeks old, something of the asparague risotto I'd been eating suddenly reappeared in DD's nappy.

She also loves tuna sahmimi, strong cheese, organic chocolate and ripe bananas in her breastmilk, too