Can diet affect the content of breast milk?

[SleepDeprivedGrumpyBum]

Forgive me for the inability to articulate what i mean in the title.

I've been wondering for some time whether or not BF'ing womans diet impacts upon the calorie content of their milk. I'm certain i read on a thread ony MN someone advising a BF'ing mum to eat fattier foods as it would make the breast milk fattier and more calorie laden for DC.

Is that true? is there fluctuation in the content of breastmilk depending on what I eat? WOuld, for example, becoming vegetarian change the calories in my breast milk?

(this is all academic by the way, i'm not asking how to change or increase the calories in my milk, just intrigued as to how it all works)although it could be a great excuse for donuts-a-plenty

As I understand it your body will make the exact milk to suit your baby calorie wise regardless of what you eat. You would have to be really malnourished for it to make a difference. Your baby tells your body what kind of milk they require in the way they feed. Your milk will have different fat confer when you're feeding a year old baby to when you're feeding a month old baby for example.

There was a study done on twins that were only exclusively allowed one breast each, one was always fed from the right and one from the left. They tested the milk from each breat and it was found the milk in each breast was quite different as each breast had adapte to make the milk required for each specific baby!

Meant to also say, Breastfeeding burns 500 cals a day so you have at least that many extra you can eat

When I had DD2 I looked into this. She was ebf but dropped down from 98th to 50th weight percentile. I was really worried that it was because I was dieting but after much investigation, on here and on Kellymom, I decided that as long as I wasn't starving myself my milk wasn't really effected.

However, anecdotally, it appears that quite a few people claim that what they eat has hugely effected their milk, although didn't make any difference for me!

My milk goes a different colour if I take certain vitamins or supplements. So although I have read on here loads of times that what you eat has no effect whatsoever, I always think to myself "yeah but.."

No, it doesn't. Certain things you eat can go into the milk, like green veg can give it a blue tint, but the calorie content won't change.

Breastmilk is closest to blood than anything else, so if you think about what passes into your blood from food that will probably be the closest correlation. Fat IIRC doesn't go directly into your blood, so it won't have an effect.