A couple of things I've been wondering about re breastmilk...

[MrsFogi]

Does anyone know:

1. if your diet is rubbish, is your breastmilk of poor nutritional quality as a consequence?
2. if the amount of sugar in your diet has any influence on your breastmilk - could a high sugar intake rot your baby's teeth?

Answer is 'no' in both instances, MrsFogi.

Therer's a good article \link{http://welcome.to/breastfeeding\here} which is clear about how breastmilk is of high quality independent of diet.

You cannot change the amount of sugar in your breastmilk by eating or not eating sugar yourself. The sugar in milk is lactose, and it is present in all milks, and it doesn't come from the sugar in your diet (which is predominantly sucrose if we are talking about added sugars).

1. AFAIK no – women who don't get enough to eat still feed their babies OK. Honestly, there have been studies in developing countries. And if there's any shortfall, your body will feed the baby first - if you don't get enough calcium, what's available will go into your milk (that's why you get free dentistry for the first year). Obviously a good idea to eat a healthy diet though.

1. No - you digest the food you eat in the normal way, it doesn't go directly into breastmilk. Leaving a baby with a bottle for too long can cause damage - bottle caries - as the sugars in formula or soft drinks are held against the teeth. The mouth action for breastfeeding is different so breastmilk isn't held against the teeth in the same way.

Thanks Tiktok and Edam, that is what I thought but I thought I'd check as my mother keeps lecturing me every time I so much look at a biscuit etc as she is convinced I will be harming her beloved granddaughter!

My mum told me that if you eat chocolate and breastfeed, it can make the baby windy. Is this true? Can foods affect windy or colicy babies?

When I was bf, if I ate anything with citrus peel in it, my DS got colic.

A few years ago peope thought that what you ate could affect your milk in some ways (ie it would taste different after a large Curry if you normally eat plain foods etc) that is why you are supposed to avoid peanuts etc, however I am not sure of the current thinking on htis.

Oh, and if I had been drinking coffee or tea, he would get more and more awake, the more he fed! Quie amazing to watch

Out of interest, is it actually possible for breast milk to be deficient in nutrients?
A relative of DH's with a 2 week old has apparently been told that (and obviously also told to supplement with formula) and although I've got no intention of saying anything, I did think that that sounded like total rubbish (also surely supplementing with formula would affect milk production and therefore wouldn't help the nutitional value at all anyway so what's the point).

Am prepared to be corrected though . Just interested to know if this is possible.

found \link{http://www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/pdfs/smokingandbf.pdf\this} about smoking and breastfeeding - it still says it's better to breastfeed and smoke than formula feed but it does sound yuk all the same!

Georginarf - AFAIK that's only likely if the mother is severely - and I do mean severely, i.e. malnourished/starving - deficient in nutrients herself. As Edam and tiktok have said, studies in developing countries show that mothers with a very marginal diet can still feed their babies perfectly well with good-quality milk.

Your friend has been given really bad info (no surprise there). Let me guess - HV or GP? God, this makes me cross...

IME Georginarf the HV has said no such thing - the mother has convinced herself her breast milk must be rubbish because her baby cries, even after a feed.

Georgina: Very seriously, long-term malnourished mothers may find their milk is marginally short of iron, and this might mean their babies might need to start iron-containing solids a little sooner than six months, according to the research. But these are (often) very young mothers in places like the slums of Mexico City (where one paper was done) and they begin their pregnancies severely anaemic, the anaemia is untreated, so the babies are born with smaller iron stores. It's a judgement call, too, as stopping breastfeeding means the mothers' periods return sooner and this means a greater risk of anaemia....

This is emphatically not a problem in the West.

There is no evidence at all - and it has been looked for - that breastmilk risks being short of 'nutrients' and treating breastmilk supposed inadequacies with formula supplementation is just daft.

Sometimes, the quantity of breastmilk is insufficient, often as a result of factors surrounding the birth, or the early days afterwards, or misunderstandings about normal feediing patterns etc etc. In severe cases, a baby might need formula rather than the problem persisting untreated as it could get worse...and the baby meanwhile needs feeding somehow.

Breastmilk does take on some flavours of the mother's diet - thought to be 'nature's Way' of getting the baby used to the foods he will have later. There's plenty of people who feel that something they ate disagreed with the baby, but this would be very difficult to prove....in any case, there is no need to cut anything out of your diet unless you are absolutely sure it causes the baby discomfort.

Thanks everyone, that's exactly what I thought - just wanted to check!

It is apparently the HV who said this, however, as 3bob says, I do suspect that she's also decided this herself (and possibly misintepreted what was said) and is coming up with excuses, which is a shame really that she feels she has to defend herself - she can of course do whatever she likes. Possibly because it's my MIL who she's talked to and no doubt the subject of my extraordinary ability to feed my baby all by myself came up! (MIL thinks I am quite odd for being able to have done this )