
We all want to give our children the best start in life, and breastfeeding is the best way to ensure good foundations for your baby’s health.
The quality of your breast milk reflects your own nutritional status and lifestyle. Ensuring you are meeting your daily nutritional requirements is essential to the health and development of your baby.
Breast milk is easy to digest, contains antibodies that protect infants from infections and contains nutrients, protein, carbohydrates and fats essential to the continual development of the child.
During breastfeeding the mother’s nutritional status strongly affects the amount of nutrients secreted in her breast milk. Deficiencies of important nutrients in the mother can cause a major reduction in the concentration of some of these nutrients in breast milk. It is therefore extremely important for the health and development of the baby to ensure the mother receives her nutritional daily requirements whilst breast-feeding.
Iodine has a very important role: it is essential for normal growth, mental development and survival. Conveniently, iodine is concentrated in the mammary glands during lactation in order to ensure an adequate supply to your baby. Iodine levels in breast milk respond quickly to dietary iodine intake by the mother further allowing this very important mineral to be available to the baby.
DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), an omega 3 fatty acid found in fish oil, is an important component of the nervous system and eyes. During pregnancy and breastfeeding, DHA rapidly accumulates in these tissues for the proper development of the brain, nerves and vision. Numerous studies have shown positive links between the mother’s intake of fish during lactation and visual and cognitive development.
Other benefits of omega-3 fatty acid supplementation in the breastfeeding mother may include improved language production and comprehension and improved cognitive function.
Ensuring an adequate intake of vitamin D in infants may prevent bone deformity and rickets. Exposing your baby to sunlight for a small amount of time before 11am and after 3pm may improve their vitamin D level in addition to what they will be getting from breast milk.
Low levels of thiamine (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), vitamin B6, and vitamin B12 in the mother results in reduced levels of these nutrients in breast milk.
Folate (vitamin B9) is also essential to the baby’s development and so breast milk concentrations of folate are maintained even at the expense of the mother’s reserves of this B vitamin.
Calcium is essential for proper bone mineralisation of the baby’s skeleton and is more easily absorbed in breast milk than from cow’s milk or formula. The mother will easily adapt to the increased demands for calcium during lactation by mobilising calcium from the bones in the first few months and then replacing it later.
It is clear that the health and nutrition of the breastfeeding mum is crucial to the production of healthy and nourishing breast milk. The second and final part to this article will include the recommended daily intake of important nutrients in breastfeeding and will also include some helpful dietary tips to make sure you are providing your baby with the best nourishment.