Balanced diet while breastfeeding

[hopefully]

A friend of mine, who is about to pop (37ish weeks), wants to go on a diet while breastfeeding, but also give her baby enough nutrients etc etc. She asked my advice as a diet queen, but I have absolutely no idea (and am only 19 weeks pregnant, so haven't even begun to contemplate such things yet!).

Is there any easily accesible information on the web or a book she can get that will tell her what levels of vitamins/minerals/calcium/etc she should be taking in to ensure the baby does not go without on the off chance she is actually able to face a diet after giving birth!

For a start, she's a loon for worrying about her weight so early Might find it drops nicely anyway.

She just needs to eat as she would - healthily and well balanced. Apparently, diet makes no difference to the quality of breastmilk. She may feel pretty pants herself if she's not eating properly though.

Diet makes no difference to the quality of breastmilk unless she is very severely malnourished.

Breastfeeding itself helps many women to loss weight and regain their figures. (it helped me get my waist back).

But for her own well being she needs to eat healthily and not eat junk food - that should do the trick.

Basically your body will strip mine you to ensure that the breastmilk stays the same no matter what you eat.

I found that I lost loads of weight with no effort at all, just because I went for an hours walk with the pram or sling everyday to keep sane, and was bfing exclusively. Went down 2 dress sizes from my prepreg size. And that was with a Magnum or Frappacino everyday too.

agree with belgo - eat healthily and worry about the weight later. Remind her that it took 9 months for her to put on the weight so 9 months to lose it is perfectly reasonable.

Howver, if she is very keen, I would suggest Slmming World as they encourage healthy eating and breastfeeding mothers are given 4 more "Healthy Extras" than usual.

It's hard when you've just had a baby not to eat a lotof ready meals, takeaways, choclate etc but, to be honest, if she just managed to not eat the junk she would rpbably lose it pretty quickly anyway

Iiiinteresting - I would have thought diet would have had more of an impact.

I think she eats fairly healthily anyway, and has a v good MIL nearby who is going to cook her plenty of proper meals to go in the freezer for post birth!

Agree she is mad for thinking of diet already - I'm still trying to get my head around the idea that I may actually have to give birth...

the human body is very clever and it takes the best of everything from the woman to give to the body.

to give to the baby I meant!

God, I can imagine. I will show her this thread and hopefully shell see that she doesn't need to worry about dieting 3 minutes after giving birth!

I recommend Slimming World too.. I wouldn't call it a diet whilst BF or even not BF, it's more just a healthy plan/way of eating that one can follow and it works