Is breast milk nutritious? A naturopath Stephanie Hamilton is here to tell you what the essential nutrients a baby needs from their mother.
We all want the best start for our babies. Breastfeeding is one of the best ways to build perfect health foundation for your baby.
The quality of breast milk relies on the amount of nutrients it has which is affected by your lifestyle. In order to give your baby optimal health and development, you must make sure to give your body what it needs.
Babies can easily digest breast milk. Breast milk provides antibody that help fight infection and contains the perfect combination of protein, carbohydrate and fat which are essential to the baby’s development.
The amount of nutrients circulating in the mother’s body over the breastfeeding period is highly correlated to the nutrients contained in breast milk. If the mother is deprived of certain nutrient, the level of that particular nutrient in her breast milk would significantly drop. Thus, a mother must make sure to receive daily sufficient nutrients over the breastfeeding period to ensure perfect health and development of her child.
Iodine
Iodine is essential to growth, psychological development and survival of a baby. Fortunately, breast milk contains adequate level of iodine. The iodine level can increase with the level of iodine intake of the mother, so, you can make sure you have enough for your baby by consuming more iodine.
Fish oil
Omega-3 fatty acid DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) found in fish oil is an important component of the nervous system and eyes. During pregnancy and breastfeeding, DHA will accumulate rapidly to promote development of the brain, nerves and sight of the baby. A lot of studies have shown a positive correlation between the consumption of DHA rich food of the mother and the development of eye sight and thinking process of the baby. Omega-3 fatty acid transferred from mother to child also improves linguistic development and understanding and enhances the thinking process of the baby.
Vitamin D
Sufficient level of vitamin D can prevent bone deformities and rickets in babies. Thus, it could be beneficial to get some sun briefly for your baby before 11 AM and after 3 PM so as to give your baby some additional vitamin D on top breast milk vitamin D.
Vitamin B complex
If a mother has low levels of thiamine (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), vitamin B6 and vitamin B12, the levels of these nutrients in her breast milk would too be low. Vitamin B9 or folate plays an important role in infant development thus a mother’s body will do whatever it takes to stabilize the folate level in breast milk, even at the cost of deficiency of this vitamin in the mother’s body.
Calcium
Calcium is crucial to the construction of bones in babies. Calcium can be absorbed from breast milk much easier than dairy milk or powdered milk. The mother’s body will adjust to this increasing calcium demand by drawing calcium out of her bones during the first months and compensate the deficit later.
Health and diet of a breastfeeding mother is essential to the production of quality and healthy breast milk. In the second part of this article, we will present you the information on how much a mother needs of each nutrient per day during breastfeeding and some suggestions on maternal nutrition for a perfect and healthy breastfeeding.
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