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Q&A: What's a Health Diet?

What is a proper diet for a breastfeeding mom?
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By Nancy Mohrbacher, IBCLC, FILCA, Lactation Specialist
Updated March 2, 2017
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The proper diet for a breastfeeding mom? A healthy one. But that’s because eating well will give you more energy and increase your resistance to illness, not because it affects your milk production. There are mothers all around the world who produce very ample milk on very inadequate diets. You don’t need to eat perfectly when you breastfeed. The best rule of thumb is to “eat to hunger.” Most moms find that they gradually lose the extra weight they gained during pregnancy that way. Rather than eating the extra calories needed for milk production, they can use their fat stores (what a concept).

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