Chili/spicy food and breastfeeding

[morningpaper]

I'm a bit peed off, my 3 month old seems very miserable when I eat hot food or food with chili in. This is basically what I eat every day, although I have tried to introduce it slowly while bfing but each time it seems to upset her. WHY does this happen? How do people in countries with chili-based diets cope? I'm annoyed at the thought of surviving on bland crap for a year or so!

My DS sees fine on chilli & curry too. Are you sure it's the Chilli? Could it be something else that you eat with the spicy foods such as tomatoes or another herb or spice. Sorry, not much help really. Perhaps when your babys digestion gets more mature she might tollerate it?

My DS can't tollerate me eating garlic in any quantity. Is really miserable and usually has a green poo!

mp, I am a real chilli-fan too - can eat raw birdseye chillis. Ate it throughout pregnancy with dd and after. Dd never seem to react to it when I bf-ed her for 17 months. Correction - dd was fussy all the time anyway for all sorts of things and I am most certain it was not due to my diet/breastmilk, solely if at all.

How do you know your dd is reacting to the spicy food in your milk? Did you eat it in pregnancy? Does she calm down when you eliminate it from your diet? Sorry for the barrage of questions ...

My ds was the same in the early days - I couldn't eat curry (even korma ), beans or peas. It did improve, can't remember when, but before 6 months.

Hi MP I asked a nurse b4 leaving hospital about which food we could eat when breastfeeding as i do love chilli the answer i got was that chinese and asian ladies eat their natural foods and their babies are fine....Therefore eat what you want!Whether that is right or wrong I didnt have anything in excess and ds2 didnt suffer.

I was told that Asian ladies actually tone their diet down whilst BF? Might be wrong tho.

Some babies react to flavours in milk, if your baby seems to become unsettled after a feed and you suspect this is the case, just clear your diet of the suspected irritant for a few days then observe, this isn't just for chillis- I've known problems with cabbage, a baby who reacted to grapes and my own DS1 reacted badly to milk products I was I was ingesting.

HTH

DS has always been fine with chilli and general spiciness but reacts badly to fenugreek (but then so do I in large amounts, as I discovered when I tried using it to boost supply).

DS1 hated garlic, rhubarb and cranberry.