How Your Food Benefits Your Breastfed Baby

Food Benefits Your Breastfed Baby

Getting the right nutrition is the key to a healthy postpartum recovery. But the importance of being properly nourished continues beyond right there. Your little darling’s primary diet is your breast milk, so getting the right foods to boost your breast milk supply and nutritional value should be prioritised.

With that said, what are the foods that can benefit you and your little one? How would these foods ease your breastfeeding issues and help your breastfed baby? Don’t worry, mummies. We have got you covered on this one. Our guide will enlighten you on how having a nutritious diet can benefit your baby’s growth.

Stronger Immune System

Establishing a good immune system is important for your baby, as it will help your little bundle of joy stay healthy and prevent them from falling ill easily. The million-dollar question is, what are the nutrients that can help your baby build a strong immune system? You can have more foods that are rich in Vitamin B1 and Vitamin B6 foods, which will then increase the concentration of these two nutrients in your breast milk, which would eventually boost your child’s immune system. Not to mention Vitamin B6 helps your newborn’s brain to develop healthily too.

Foods such as liver, cauliflower, eggs, potatoes, kale and asparagus are great sources of vitamin B1. Meanwhile, foods that are rich in Vitamin B6 are salmon, eggs, carrots, spinach, bananas and avocados. By incorporating these foods into your diet, you will be able to help your little darling grow better and healthier as well!

Lower Risk of Allergies and Better Eyesight

Your breast milk has the ability to help protect your baby from getting allergies, as well as help them develop better eyesight. Specifically, Vitamin C in your breast milk helps with allergy prevention, while Vitamin A helps with eyesight development. The benefits of Vitamin A and Vitamin C do not end there, both nutrients are great for your postpartum recovery as they improve your collagen formation to promote wound healing around the genital and caesarean area after labour. Sounds like a wholesome diet to us!

Some examples of food that are rich in Vitamin A include carrots, pumpkin, wolfberries, amaranth and spinach. On the other hand, foods that contain a high amount of Vitamin C are red dates, capsicum, lotus root, tomatoes and snow peas.

Healthy Cells and Brain Development

Moving forward, the folate in your breast milk helps maintain healthy cells for your newborn, as well as support your newborn’s brain development. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, your baby’s brain development in the first eight years sets a foundation for their future learning, health and life achievements. While other factors like genes and the babies’ learning environment play a role in their brain development, proper nutrition in the early years of your baby’s childhood is just as crucial. 

To boost the content of folate in your breast milk, you can start having more folate-rich foods like red beans, black beans, marmite, pork liver and okra. On top of benefiting your baby, keeping your folate level in check also helps you to build healthy red blood cells and prevent anaemia.

Stronger Bones and Teeth

Stronger Bones and Teeth

As your children grow older and bigger, their bones and teeth follow suit as well. With that in mind, you will need to get more foods that are high in calcium so that your breast milk will be able to provide enough calcium to boost their bones and teeth growth. Foods such as milk, cheese, yoghurt, broccoli and green leafy vegetables contain a high level of calcium to help both you and your newborn build strong and healthy bones.

Now that we know how certain foods can benefit your baby, here are some tips on how incorporating certain food into your daily meals could potentially play a part in improving your milk supply.

What to eat to improve your milk supply?

Fenugreek

Fenugreek is a type of seed that can help increase your breast milk supply. Breastmilk supply may be affected by stress and various other reasons. Consuming fenugreek is a good way to boost your milk supply, it can be consumed in different methods, such as fenugreek seeds, capsules, tea and sprouts!

Ginger

Ginger is a popular spice or herbs for confinement with tons of benefits to not only breastfeeding mothers but to women in general! Some women will take it during their period to help in warming their bodies. Ginger is able to promote healing after giving birth, and it is also a galactagogue to help mothers stimulate their milk supply in the immediate postpartum period without any side effects. Most of the traditional confinement meals will include ginger in their meals to help mothers increase their milk supply.

Green Papaya

Green papaya contains high levels of Vitamin A and carotene, which is able to boost the milk supply of mothers. It has a lactogenic effect which helps increase milk and is also very safe to consume during the postpartum period. Find the best fish soup with papaya in Singapore at Tian Wei Signature.

Garlic

Garlic is also a very popular ingredient for confinement meals Singapore service, it has been used as a herb to stimulate and increase breast milk for many years! According to studies, it improves the length of the breastfeeding period when the mother consumes garlic.

That said, it is very important to consume well-balanced meals when you’re breastfeeding to ensure your breast milk contains various essential nutrients to help your little one grow. Having foods that are rich in essential nutrients such as Vitamin A, Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, Choline, Iodine, and DHA can help boost the concentration of these nutrients in your breast milk. Studies show that these nutrients in breastmilk can decrease, and these nutrients are important for your baby’s development and your own health.

How many calories do you need while breastfeeding?

Some mothers might be thinking about losing weight by eating less during the postpartum period. This is not recommended as your body needs the energy and nutrients to not only recover and heal but to breastfeed your baby! Breastfeeding takes up 300 to 500 calories per day whether you nourish yourself or not. Do not get me wrong either way. Your breast milk is the best for your baby, but eating adequately helps to improve your breast milk nutritional density. Having too little may not affect your breast milk production, but it will definitely affect your nutritional status and put you at a higher risk of malnourishment, thus, a higher risk of falling sick easily.  

Besides that, there’s another essential point to ensure your milk supply, which is to consume a sufficient amount of fluids. As breast milk is primarily made of fluids, insufficient fluid consumption will also affect milk flow! While water is highly recommended for hydration, other drinks you have during your confinement can also help, including red dates tea and confinement herbal soups. Meanwhile, you can check out MumChecked for top-rated products that help you get smoother milk flow and have a better breastfeeding experience.

Fun Fact:

Breastfeeding can actually burn around an additional 500 calories daily, which equals 30 minutes of non-stop running! Hence, breastfeeding is a good start for your postpartum weight loss journey!

What to not eat during breastfeeding?

If you are also wondering what not to eat or eat less during the breastfeeding period, here are some foods you might want to avoid:

Alcohol

You are recommended not to drink alcohol during breastfeeding as alcohol intake can leak into your breast milk. If you do drink 1 standard drink, you must also take note to not breastfeed your baby for at least 4 hours as the maternal alcohol content in the body is at its peak at the 3rd hour and only starts to subside after. Some mothers pump and dump for that feed just to reduce exposure to alcohol for their little ones.

Caffeine

Caffeine may be a good relief of stress for grown-ups, but it may affect a baby’s emotions and leads to being unable to nurse well. It’s best that the amount of your caffeine intake does not exceed 2 cups of coffee a day.

Peppermint, Parsley and Sage

There is not enough scientific evidence to say these herbs do interfere with your milk supply, but mothers claim that these herbs are known as anti-galactagogues, which means they may decrease the stimulation of your breast milk if consumed more. This is similarly believed in traditional Chinese medicine. If you find that your milk supply has dropped after taking these, you should avoid them while you’re breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding can be challenging at times, but it doesn’t have to be this way all the time! For more options on the best breastfeeding products for your convenience, check out the variety of nursing, feeding and newborn care products on MumChecked!

In conclusion, it is essential to ensure that you are getting all the right nutrients while you are still breastfeeding. Your choice of foods or diet holds a major influence on your baby’s growth. Hence, the need to practice a healthy diet has never been more important! Give your body the best nutrition to support your breastfeeding needs and postpartum recovery with Tian Wei Signature’s nutritious, dietitian-guided confinement meals. We offer a variety of fusion confinement meals, traditional Chinese confinement meals and soup delivery Singapore mothers with trust and love. Your daily meals also include one litre of the classic Chinese confinement drinks—red dates tea. Interested to learn more? View our full menu by entering your EDD on our menu webpage now!