After pregnancy, you need to continue to eat good and healthy foods. It is necessary to restore the balance of nutrients and improve overall health, which is especially important when breast-feeding a baby.
Pregnancy and childbirth probably created a nutrient deficiency in your body. You may have had a long battle or lost a lot of blood. A balanced diet is vital to maintaining your health and providing you with the energy you need to care for your baby.
However, the baby’s needs can leave little time for cooking or the healthy foods you ate while pregnant. In this case, always have at hand healthy snacks that you can “intercept,” and freeze the excess so that you can quickly use it if necessary. It’s good to think about taking general-purpose drugs with a well-balanced complex of vitamins and minerals.
NUTRITION FOR BREAST-FEEDING MOTHERS
If you are breastfeeding, you probably understand how responsible this process is. Your food through milk should satisfy all the energy needs of a growing baby. In addition, food must contain the necessary amount of vitamins and minerals for the health of the child and mother.
Your energy needs
During pregnancy, most women accumulate from 2 to 4 kilograms of fat, which is used as an additional source of energy when breastfeeding. Despite this, you need energy for lactation. The best criterion in the first few weeks after giving birth is your appetite, so you will consume about 500 calories more than the recommended 1950-2100 for non-pregnant women.
Essential Vitamins for Breastfeeding
The composition of vitamins in breast milk largely depends on what a woman consumes. Pay special attention to the following vitamins.
♦ Vitamin A As with most nutrients, the need for it increases during lactation to cover its flow through milk to the baby. Many people already consume enough vitamin A, but try to increase your daily intake. Good sources of vitamin A are fish oil, dairy products, egg yolk, yellow and red fruits and vegetables.
♦ B vitamins These are water-soluble vitamins, which means the impossibility of their accumulation in the body, so they are needed daily. Good sources of B vitamins are whole grain bread and cereals, lean meats, fortified breakfasts, fish and eggs.
♦ Vitamin C Like vitamin B, it is water-soluble, so set yourself the task of consuming vitamin C-richCarbohydrates do not create body fat Foods such as potatoes and pasta do not contain many calories, extra fats give butter and vegetable oil and cream, which significantly increase the calorie content. If you want to lose weight while maintaining a sufficient level of energy, unrefined carbohydrates will be the best source of energy. So, 170 g of potatoes, depending on the cooking method, will give a different amount of energy: boiled potatoes will give 130 calories, fried - 268, and chips - 430. Choose healthier and less high-calorie cooking, and you will lose weight faster.
shchu, which includes citrus fruits and juices, kiwi, berries, green vegetables, potatoes, red and black peppers. ♦ Vitamin D Since the main source of vitamin D is the effect of sunlight on the skin, it is not surprising that breast-fed babies show seasonal fluctuations in their vitamin D levels. In autumn children, its concentration can drop to a very low level, since winter milk contains little of this vitamin. For this reason, breast-feeding mothers are advised to take 10 mcg of vitamin A daily. D.
Essential Minerals for Breastfeeding
If the intake of certain minerals (especially iron and calcium) is low, your body’s natural stores will be used to ensure that they are normally in breast milk. Of course, they will be withdrawn from the "warehouses" already exhausted by pregnancy, therefore it is necessary to use such a quantity of minerals that will cover the needs of both you and the child.
You need a well-balanced diet to meet your needs. Iron can be obtained from lean red meat, fish, whole grains, spinach, fortified cereal breakfasts and legumes. Calcium-rich foods include dairy products, tofu, and leafy green vegetables. However, if you are allergic to lactose, you can take calcium-containing drugs that will prevent it from being washed out of the bones.
Drink plenty of fluids
Make sure you consume plenty of fluids - six to eight 250-gram glasses a day. Drinking is especially important when breastfeeding, because every day the mother gives the baby 0.5-0.6 liters of fluid per day. When feeding, always keep a glass of water next to you and drink it often, in small sips. However, do not force yourself to drink too much water, as drinking more than 12 glasses a day will slow the production of milk.
Any alcohol you consume will pass into milk. It will affect the smell of milk and may not please the baby. Excessive alcohol consumption can lead to drowsiness, irritability, and growth retardation. For these reasons, it is best to avoid alcohol while breastfeeding. But if you can’t completely refuse it, limit yourself to a daily glass of wine after feeding.
After a cup of coffee, tea or cola, the caffeine level in milk reaches a maximum after an hour. It’s more difficult for a child’s body to get rid of caffeine than an adult, so it can accumulate. In children whose mothers have consumed even an average amount of caffeine, sleep, increased irritability are disturbed, so try to drink no more than one cup of coffee or tea per day and, as a rule, two hours before feeding.
REDUCING CALORIES
You are undoubtedly alarmed to regain your former shape and get rid of extra pounds, but do not get too carried away. Constrained diet or fast-paced diet, not just
Ready-to-eat dried fruits, such as dates, apricots and currants, are a good source of iron and energy.
Bananas are rich in potassium, which is responsible for the water balance in the body.
Cheese and milk (optional low fat) will help you maintain the required level of calcium.
Vitaminized cereal breakfasts make up for the lack of B vitamins, and sometimes iron.
Seeds contain zinc, which is necessary for wound healing.
Slices of pepper, broccoli inflorescences and cherry tomatoes will increase vitamin C levels and help the body fight infections.
are not healthy, especially if you are breastfeeding, but also unproductive. If you do not consume enough calories, then you put yourself at risk of being left without the vitamins and minerals your body needs.
If you are breastfeeding, limiting your calorie intake may question your ability to make milk. As soon as milk starts to be produced properly, start to lose weight, because weight loss will not affect its production. Just do it slowly and thoughtfully. Do not lower your daily food intake below 1800 calories and do this no earlier than 6-8 weeks after the birth of the baby.
If you do not breast-feed, you still need to maintain a certain energy level, but you can reduce the diet to 1950-2100 calories (that is, what was before pregnancy). However, do it gradually, over the course of several weeks, and do not immediately be too hard on yourself.
Even if you do not breast-feed, you should think about the balance of vitamins and minerals that enter the body in order to keep yourself fit and not harm your health, since it will take strength to take care of the child. Pregnancy will deplete the body's nutrient reserves, so a balanced diet with plenty of fresh foods is needed to restore the body. Watch your intake of fats, vegetable oils and sugar, eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. Unrefined carbohydrates (for example, brown rice and whole grain bread, cereals and pasta) will be saturated with energy and provide useful nutrients, they will help you take care of your child.
After birth, the menu must certainly contain dishes with fiber.
Doctors gave recommendations regarding products that should be consumed by women who have recently had a birth. Young parents should also adhere to certain restrictions in their nutrition.
After childbirth, it is dangerous to include in the diet products that can provoke the development of an allergic reaction. To restore health after the appearance of the baby, it is recommended to lean on chicken stock, with it you can prevent a deficiency in the body fluid.
For a snack, saltine crackers are suitable, which can suppress the feeling of hunger. The product contains electrolytes and carbohydrates. Regenerating energy will be possible with dates containing simple sugars.
After birth, the menu should certainly contain dishes with fiber, the latter will stabilize the digestive tract. An excellent choice is oatmeal. In order to prevent iron deficiency and anemia, it is advisable to at least occasionally eat beef while the eggs are a source of protein.
Why are vitamins needed after pregnancy?
Childbirth depletes the mother’s body, a huge amount of its resources goes to the formation and development of the fetus, bearing and giving birth to a baby, and during childbirth significant blood loss occurs. At the end of pregnancy, the young mother needs to return all organs and systems to the previous mode of operation, as well as provide the baby with food. It should be borne in mind that milk production will occur in conditions of a strictly limited nutritional diet. Properly selected vitamins will help to cope with this task. They will help to recover after childbirth, improve health, and also make milk more useful and saturate it in sufficient quantities with the elements necessary for the development and growth of the newborn.
The main reason that leads to a deficiency of vitamins is hormonal changes. The hormonal background undergoes significant changes during childbearing, during this period the ovaries begin to increase sex hormones, and immediately after birth, the hormonal background again changes due to the production of prolactin necessary for milk production.
How to choose the right vitamin composition?
In order to determine which vitamins to drink after childbirth, you need to contact a specialist and go through a series of studies. In any case, ordinary vitamins designed for the needs of the average person are not suitable for this. Women in childbirth are required in an increased amount and a more diverse form.
Do not abuse vitamins, since this can lead to the opposite effect, hypervitaminosis is no less dangerous than hypovitaminosis. Take vitamin complexes should be strictly under the supervision of a doctor. If there is a lack of any one or more elements in the woman’s body, the doctor can prescribe monopreparations that contain the missing substances in dosages that significantly exceed their amount in complex preparations.
It is recommended to use vitamin complexes after childbirth of the same series that were taken during pregnancy. Some pharmaceutical companies produce universal complex preparations that can be used both during pregnancy and after childbirth. However experts advise purchasing complexes designed separately for each period.
