During pregnancy and postpartum, your body is working overtime to grow your baby, recover from delivery, and produce breast milk for your little one. After birth, many parents focus most of their attention on feeding baby and while the body is resilient in making breast milk that is nourishing for your baby, adequate nutritional intake is crucial to ensure your needs are met as well. The unique stressors of breastfeeding and early parenthood create the need for intentional nutrition throughout the 4th trimester. The goal is not perfection, but rather to slowly build routines that support your nourishment and well-being during this time. Focusing on postpartum nutrition can support recovery, energy levels, and your overall health while adjusting to life with a newborn.
Key Takeaways: Postpartum, Baby & Lactation Feeding
- Postpartum nutrition plays an important role in recovery, energy levels, healing, and milk production after birth.
- Breastfeeding and lactation increase nutritional needs, meaning many parents require additional calories, hydration, and nutrients.
- Staying hydrated is essential for milk supply and overall postpartum wellness. Drinking water consistently throughout the day can help support breastfeeding.
- Balanced meals matter. Protein, healthy fats, fiber, and nutrient dense carbohydrates help support recovery and sustained energy.
- Key nutrients during postpartum and lactation include iron, calcium, vitamin D, omega 3 fatty acids, choline, iodine, and protein.
- Every feeding journey looks different. Breastfeeding, pumping, formula feeding, or a combination of methods are all valid ways to nourish a baby.
- Milk supply concerns are common and can be influenced by nutrition, hydration, feeding frequency, stress, and overall health.
- Restrictive dieting right after birth may negatively affect recovery, energy, and milk production. Healing and nourishment should be prioritized.
- Sleep deprivation and stress can affect appetite, energy, and feeding experiences during the postpartum period.
- Feeding challenges are common. Parents may benefit from support from a registered dietitian, lactation consultant, or healthcare provider.
- There is no one size fits all approach to postpartum or infant feeding. Nutrition recommendations should be individualized based on parent and baby needs.
- Seeking help early can make feeding feel less overwhelming and improve confidence during the postpartum transition.
Balanced Energy
Including a source of protein, fiber-rich carbohydrates, healthy fats, and vegetables at each meal helps you maintain balanced blood sugars and steady energy throughout the day. It’s helpful to imagine filling about ¼ of your plate with protein, ¼ with carbohydrates, and ½ the plate with veggies. To make snacks more satisfying, try to pair protein with carbs such as fruit with cottage cheese or trail mix with nuts and dried fruit.
Protein is especially important to meet your needs for postpartum healing and lactation, and calorie demands are highly increased during this time as well. Individual calorie and protein needs will vary upon many factors such as size, activity level, and stage of lactation. Honoring your body’s signals and responding to your appetite with food will help make sure you are eating enough throughout the day. It can be challenging to navigate your appetite and eating schedule during postpartum as you adjust to the busy (and sleep-deprived!) life of having a newborn, but aiming to eat at least every 3-4 hours, or about 3 meals and 2-3 snacks, is a good place to start. A balanced breastfeeding diet that includes protein, healthy fats, and nutrient-dense foods can help support steady energy and postpartum recovery.
Some parents benefit from reminders, such as alerts on their phone or sticky notes around the house, to help them not forget about eating.
When possible, it’s helpful to think of ways to prepare for postpartum so you can eat enough while prioritizing rest, bonding and feeding your baby. Meal preparation can make postpartum recovery nutrition more manageable during the early weeks with a newborn.
Some ideas include:
- Batch preparing extra meals during the last few months of pregnancy to store in the freezer.
- Lean on your community, having friends or family organize a meal train for several weeks, or asking for help with grocery shopping and cooking.
- Try out a meal service, some are even designed for postpartum!
- Have packaged snacks on hand such as beef jerky, energy bites, drinkable yogurts, or nut bars for ease of access.
Hydration
Drinking to thirst is generally adequate to meet your fluid needs during postpartum and lactation. Hydration is an important part of breastfeeding nutrition and may help support milk production and energy levels during recovery.
During times of stress (such as breastfeeding) the body can become depleted in several minerals, including electrolytes that facilitate hydration. Sodium, potassium, chloride, and magnesium help your body’s cells absorb water. While these minerals can be found in a variety of foods, some find it helpful to use a hydration multiplier 1-2 times per day.
Supplementation
It is recommended to continue a quality prenatal vitamin throughout your breastfeeding journey. When combined with a balanced diet, extra vitamins and minerals help bridge the gap while your micronutrient demands are so increased. Micronutrient needs are highly individualized, so always discuss with your doctor or consult with a dietitian if you have questions about supplementation. Working with a registered dietitian for postpartum nutrition support can help you understand your unique nutritional needs during lactation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there anything I can eat to increase my milk supply?
Milk production is initially influenced by hormonal shifts, which then switches over to supply and demand. Your body uses a negative feedback loop to help regulate milk production based on how much your baby eats. The more milk that is left in the breast, the more signals your body will send to slow down milk production. Because of this, your body is constantly calibrating how much milk to make depending on how much is removed by your baby or breast pump.
The best way to support milk supply is to stimulate your breasts frequently with adequate milk removal. Eating enough and staying hydrated are also important factors. Proper lactation nutrition and consistent nourishment may help support healthy milk production alongside regular feeding or pumping.
There are certain foods and herbal supplements that are considered galactogogues, or substances that promote milk production. The research is limited regarding the efficacy of galactogogues and many of the reported benefits are anecdotal. Some examples of lactogenic foods include oatmeal, steel cut oats, and brewers yeast. Common herbal supplements include moringa, fenugreek, goats rue and milk thistle.
It’s important to consider that herbal supplements are not regulated by the FDA and some can have harmful effects, such as interactions with medications, reactions related to food allergies, and GI disturbances. It’s important to work with a doctor, herbalist or dietitian specializing in lactation to help decide which galactogogues are best quality and appropriate for your situation. As with all supplements, galactogogues are not intended as the main solution to milk supply concerns, but they can provide support while addressing the foundations of lactation.
Can I increase the quality of my breastmilk through my diet?
As mentioned earlier, your baby will continue to receive what they need from your breast milk regardless of your nutritional intake. This is because your body is amazingly programmed to draw from your own nutrient stores if needed to prioritize breastmilk production.
Factors such as protein and calorie density, as well as most mineral levels remain uninfluenced by the lactating parent’s diet. However, there are several components that can shift based on your intake, increasing the delivery of beneficial nutrients to your baby. For example, consuming more omega 3 fats (such as brain-boosting DHA) can increase this type of fat in your milk.
There are also certain vitamins known to vary in breastmilk based on the nursing parent’s diet. For example, increased vitamin D intake can help increase delivery through breastmilk, though many babies will still benefit from a vitamin D supplement. For vegan and vegetarian parents that do not consume animal products, making sure to supplement with additional vitamin B12 is important to ensure baby receives enough of this nutrient through breastmilk.
Overall, a balanced diet and continuing to take your prenatal supplements while breastfeeding helps support the nutrient density of your milk while protecting you from becoming nutritionally depleted. Nutrition during breastfeeding plays an important role in supporting both maternal wellness and infant nourishment.
Is there anything I shouldn’t eat while breastfeeding?
Compared to pregnancy, there are only a few overlapping recommendations of foods to limit or avoid while lactating. This is because breastmilk is made from your blood, which has already been filtered by your liver, versus digested food reaching your baby more directly through the placenta during pregnancy.
One recommendation to continue is choosing fish that are low in mercury to minimize exposure, such as canned light tuna and salmon. It is also recommended to keep caffeine intake at about 200-300 mg or less per day, which is similar to pregnancy. Lower intake is usually recommended while feeding newborns and premature babies, as they have a harder time eliminating caffeine from their bodies.
Other foods commonly avoided during pregnancy, such as sushi, deli meats, undercooked proteins, and soft cheeses, are generally safe to resume while lactating.
Often parents have questions about how to consume alcohol safely while breastfeeding. For those that had previously enjoyed their glass of wine or fun cocktail, this is understandable after abstaining from alcohol for 9 months or longer. While consuming alcohol during breastfeeding is generally more flexible than during pregnancy, it’s important to note that the concentration of alcohol in your bloodstream is mirrored in your milk.
As your body metabolizes the alcohol and blood levels decrease, your milk levels will decrease at the same rate. This is why the recommendation to “pump and dump” is not effective, you cannot reduce the amount of alcohol in your milk by increasing removals. For those aiming to minimize baby’s exposure to alcohol via breastmilk, it’s generally recommended to wait about 2 hours per standard drink to breastfeed.
If you have consumed enough alcohol that you are not comfortable feeding your baby, it’s important to continue pumping at least every 3 hours to maintain milk supply and prevent mastitis.
For more support during postpartum, please reach out and schedule a discovery call with Shelby to see if she would be a good fit. A discovery call is a 15 minute phone call that you can get your questions answered. Schedule now. Personalized postpartum nutrition counseling and breastfeeding support can help you feel more confident during recovery and infant feeding.
Here is a helpful resource that can help calculate your ‘time to zero’ based on your body weight and how much you drink: https://www.infantrisk.com/content/alcohol-breastfeeding-whats-your-time-zero
For more support during postpartum, please reach out and schedule a discovery call with Shelby to see if she would be a good fit. A discovery call is a 15 minute phone call that you can get your questions answered. Schedule now.
Sources:
Lauwers, J. and Swisher, A. (2016). Counseling the Nursing Mother, 6th Edition. Jones and Bartlett Learing
Walker, M. (2017) Breastfeeding Management for the Clinician, 4th Edition. Jones and Bartlett Learning.
Nichols, L. (2018) Real Food for Pregnancy. Lily Nichols.
Joan Younger Meek, Lawrence Noble; Technical Report: Breastfeeding and the Use of Human Milk. Pediatrics July 2022; 150 (1): e2022057989. 10.1542/peds.2022-057989
