Many women are worried about their nutrition after birth: how does the mother’s diet affect breastfeeding? Many women have been given different advice: ” You need to drink a lot of milk to get more milk,” “You need to eat calcium-rich food, so you don’t run out of milk,” “Be careful with beans, because the baby will get gas,” “Don’t drink lemon, because your milk will dry up,” and so we could continue the endless list. So what’s the truth…
Eating nuts and dried fruits is a recommendation often given to breastfeeding mothers. In fact, some people believe that eating plenty of nuts will increase a mother´s milk supply. Is this true, or another myth? What are nuts and dried fruits? Nuts are a type of food that comes from a variety of plants and trees and are distinguished by having a hard shell that protects the seed inside. These seeds are rich in nutrients and healthy fats, making them…
Frequently, the differences between lactose intolerance and CMPA, which stands for cow’s milk protein allergy, are not well distinguished. This happens not only to families but also to healthcare professionals. A food allergy and food intolerance are both adverse reactions to the consumption of certain foods. Differentiating the symptoms, causes, and treatment is key to guiding families in case their infants suffer from any of these pathologies. Food allergy is a reaction of the immune system that causes repeated symptoms…
We are born with a biological tendency to prefer sweet food and to avoid those that give us a bitter taste. Certain scientific hypotheses propose that this is purely for survival, so we prefer more energy-dense food. But nowadays, basing our diet on this “survival instinct,” with the type of food we have at hand today, is not very appropriate. The taste of food in mother’s milk More and more studies suggest that even before the birth of a child,…
“I took my pumped breastmilk out of the freezer and smelled it – it’s gone sour! It smells bad, and I think it’s gone off. I have a lot of frozen milk, will the rest be all the same? What should I do with it?” This is a question we receive frequently, and that causes a lot of concern. Because in these cases, the smell of the breastmilk is really unpleasant. So today, we explain what causes this change in…
During the postpartum period, you might have a special craving for sweets and wonder: can I eat chocolate while breastfeeding? If you have just given birth, someone might have gifted you a box of chocolates or some other type of chocolate, or you feel a strong desire to eat them now, even if you have never had a sweet tooth before. Does it have any effect on the baby? You may have heard that chocolate contains something called theobromine, which…
For some years, it has been recommended in some countries that infants under one year of age take a supplement of 400 IU/day of vitamin D to prevent nutritional rickets. It is estimated that 80-90% of vitamin D is synthesized in the skin from the action of UVB radiation (1). Several factors influence vitamin D syntheses, such as skin pigmentation, latitude, time of day of sun exposure, use of sunscreens, and seasonality, being the winter months in the northern hemisphere,…
There are some divided opinions about the right term to use when discussing breastfeeding older babies. The expression “extended breastfeeding” is not liked by all, nor is the term “long-term or prolonged breastfeeding”. We have not yet found the ideal words to refer to breastfeeding when children are over two years old. We will not enter into this discussion today, but here we would like to talk about questions you might have about breastfeeding older children. There are several interesting…
Many mothers worldwide are still often told that they should avoid eating certain foods so their breastmilk doesn’t taste bad, which could supposedly make the baby reject their breastmilk. Is there such a thing as a natural taste of breast milk? Of course, there is! But what happens is that the natural taste of breast milk is not always the same, but has very different and a broad range of flavors. Breast milk tastes of not just one flavor alone….
Depending on where you are, it is starting to get hot, and you might wonder what you should do. Adults are advised to be careful with their hydration and increase the amount of water they drink to stay well hydrated, but what about babies? You might wonder: should I give my baby water, too, or is this not necessary? Here we answer all your questions! Firstly, recommendations about offering water to a baby are very different depending on whether your…
