does my diet affect my breastmilk?

[flipflopson5thavenue]

more specifically - does eating cake and chocolate and ice cream and generally sugary crap more or less every day, all day - mean that my BM will be bad for my DS?

Am pretty sure that it won't be, I'm the one who will bear the consequence of my poor diet, but sometimes I get paranoid that he's going to end up an obese diabetic because I'm a greedy cow :-(

DS is almost 11mo, been ebf since birth and still bf on demand (prob 3/4 times a day) as well as solids. I only offer him healthy solid food.

Am I ruining my breast milk?! :-(

I hope not because I had a diet of almost exclusive sugar and fat!

Is this what you are after

Sugar and fat is what breastmilk is made of. You're doing we'll.

I think some things pass through but the quality of your BM will be ok.
However are you getting enough sleep? I found I ate crap when tired and run down.

Aw thanks for posting about this. I've had low level background guilt about this all my dd's life - am still bfing her at 12 months.

thanks, I had in fact read the kellymom stuff when I last had my bout of paranoid a few months ago...!

I'm not getting enough sleep really, but that's getting better recently as DS sleeping better. However, I am often bad tempered and I think this might have a lot to do with my diet. I go back to work in about 7 weeks and I shall be cycling the 8miles there and back each day, and, I hope, returning to having regular, and somewhat healthier, meals so I hope that will improve my mood.

But in the meantime, its time for more ice cream :-)

IWipeArses - thanks for the suggestion that I'm actually doing something positive for the quality of my BM :-)

Really don't worry, with DS I was eating a box of poppycock cashew popcorn a day. My bf came to visit, read the box, made a face, asked me how often I was eating it, made an even bigger shock face and then said "you do realise there is over a thousand calories in a box don't you?"

I've always been greedy, for savoury as well as sweet, but since DS was born I never EVER had cravings for savoury. Instead its sweet sweet sweet. Can't get enough of it. I almost miss my ooooo-I-could-just-murder-200g-of-pasta cravings...!

I have to say though that I found that my dc would get tummy ache and be very unsettled the day after I had had lots of chocolate or cake. Also there was a stall that sold freshly squeezed orange juice on once a week and if I had a beaker of that, you would see the results in dd's nappy the next day.

Breastmilk is made in your breasts, not your stomach. Food doesn't get converted directly into milk, food is digested and then the body makes blood, milk etc.

You would have to be severely malnourished before your breast milk would suffer. I too crave sweet things more now that I am bfing, I think it's the body's way of getting you to take in the extra calories you need.

SusuwatariToes - you may be right. We are after genetically predisposed to favour sweet stuff because of the calorie content (calories = survival) so maybe nature takes over while you're nursing your baby with this very instinctive craving.

Or perhaps we're all just greedy! ;-)

The link explains it well but food does get passed through to breast milk. My DS reacted to peanuts, dairy, wheat and sugar he was getting from my breast milk. Unless your DS is allergic to things you are eating, it is however unlikely to be doing him harm.