Eating too little for EBF?

[fathergoose]

DS is 10 days old. I have lots of milk: he's feeding/pooing/weeing regularly and I'm also pumping around 100-150ml a day (doctor's orders).

However I'm really worried that I'm not eating enough and that my milk isn't going to be giving him the good things he needs. I don't count calories but I eat less than most people I know and almost all of it is very healthy (salads, stir-fries etc). I'm also very active with a toddler to look after.

Is there any way of telling if I'm undereating? Should I look into counting calories? I'm so pro-BF, but have got scared that actually it's not doing him as much good as it should. All the info I've found out seems to contradict each other - some says my milk won't be good enough quality, other bits say that it'll be fine since my body prioritises the baby first.

Plenty of actually malnourished women can feed their babies no problem. Milk is almost always perfectly fine for your baby, the types of fats you eat can slightly change the types of fats in your milk, but if you are eating a vaguely normal-ish diet then nothing to worry about at all.

If you are eating enough to have plenty of energy and not be hungry, and your are not terribly thin, you are eating enough.

Reliable info can be found on Kellymom

Your diet has absolutely no effect on your ability to make milk unless you're actually starving (and, as Merry said, many women who are actually starving still make enough milk), and has absolutely nothing to do with milk "quality". Not eating enough may have an effect on you, in that you may find yourself feeling hungry and below par because you're using the calories to make milk rather than give you energy, but won't do anything to baby.

That's such a relief. I feel great: lots of energy, not too thin, eat when hungry etc. I just suddenly panicked when I kept reading all this 'eat an extra 500 calories a day' stuff that if I didn't, I'd harm my baby.

Thanks.