Nerdy breastmilk question

[MrsPhas3]

I was just looking in dd2s little red book, and see that she put on about 8lb while being ebf for 6 months - clearly bm is darn good stuff. And was wondering if anyone knew of any studies that have shown the typical calorie content of bm and the composition (fat/minerals, etc) as the baby grows.

I have a vague memory of a milk marketing board advert from way back that showed a pint of cows milk as an equivalent bottle of vitamin supplements. Would be interested to see something like that for bm.

Thanks.

PS Can you tell I'm a geeky engineer on mat leave craving some technical info!

PPS Will then be able to calculate the total additional calories I will need to feed ds (now 8 weeks), and justify eating a cream cake this evening.

No idea re your tech questions but EAT THE CAKE
ANYWAY

yes, breast milk is great - DS has put on nearly 8lbs in 16 weeks!

I read that by 3 months the extra calories required is around 500 (have read from 300 to silly figures in various places) a day

Kellymom.comprobably has links to most of the info that you are looking for.

The magic thing about breastmilk is that it changes along with the baby so that it is always perfect for him/her.

Thanks for the link mawbroon. I'll take my time reading through it some time.

I have an enormous document by the WHO called "the nutrient adequacy of exclusive breastfeeding for the term infant" which gives info on the enrgy content of milk and lots of other information. I could forward it to you if you were interested.

I've been taking part in a study aiming to look at the metabolic rates of breast fed babies, it's been very interesting (had to spend a lot of time collecting ds's wee!).

Liath - that sounds pretty interesting. To tell you the truth, after starting to look at some of kellymon links I realised I could be here forever. I would be interested to read the WHO doc but goodness knows how I'd find the time. Do you have it electronically? I might try and search the WHO website for it. Thanks for info though.

I have to confess I haven't waded my way through it - it's on my list of things to do!! It's a pdf but I expect it might be available on the WHO website.

You could eat the cake whilst you are wading through it.

Good thinking. Sounds like I might need a whole cake shop!

What sort of engineer are you btw?

20 calories per ounce apparently