Having recently had a baby, I’ve been thinking a lot more about breast milk than I normally do. They say “breast is best” for many reasons but they also say to watch what you eat and make sure when breastfeeding to eat a healthy, well rounded diet. Honestly, I always assumed that most of that was for the benefit of the mother who is donating from her own stores to feed the baby and has to replace those resources with her dietary intake. I figured that the baby was going to get what it needed and the mother would likely be the one bearing the brunt of any nutritional deficiencies. However, we do not employ a “one and done” reproductive strategy so, it being entirely possible that I was wrong, I decided to look into it further by specifically investigating fatty acids in infant and maternal nutrition.
It turns out that what you eat really does make a difference in the nutrition that your baby gets from you, at least in the case of fatty acids. n-3 and n-6 fatty acids have a large part to play in proper development and having enough n-3’s in particular seem to improve the abilities of very young children in a variety of areas. The kinds of fats that you ingest will affect what your child receives and choosing something like fish oil, for example, will elevate the level of DHA in the breast milk for up to a couple of days even when it was only taken at one meal. Having more useful fats such as arachidonic acid instead of trans fats also seems to correlate with having full term gestation. After the baby is born, one of the reasons that breast milk is more nutritious than formula is the balance of fatty acids available in it. The fat globules in milk are much more complex with a wide variety of beneficial components and likely have fatty acid structures in the outer membrane of those globules that make the fats more easily absorbed than what is added to formula.
A prenatal vitamin regimen doesn’t always include any fatty acids. As much as it might be comforting to think you’ve gotten your bases covered by taking those vitamins, it’s still important to at least get all the nutrition you and your baby need, even if you add extra ice cream calories at the end of the day.
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Delplanque, B., Gibson, R., Koletzko, B., Lapillonne, A., & Strandvik, B. (2015). Lipid Quality in Infant Nutrition: Current Knowledge and Future Opportunities. Journal of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition, 61(1), 8–17. doi:10.1097/MPG.0000000000000818
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Lapillonne, Alexandre and Sissel J. Multu. (2016). Long-chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Clinical Outcomes of Preterm Infants.
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I love that you posted about breastfeeding!! Yes! I also was so curious about this and also always heard the same thing: the baby will get what it needs and the mom will go without if there isn’t enough. The most interesting thing I saw when I was researching this before was that if you do not intake enough calcium, your bones will literally start to breakdown so that your baby will get as much as they need. Some people even have 3-5% bone mass decrease while breastfeeding! What?! Luckily, I love chocolate milk so it wasn’t much of a problem for me :P
ReplyDeleteAlso, in this same vein of thought, I found it really interesting that there are some things that babies can’t get enough of just from breast milk. There’s actually been an increase in the occurrence of nutritional rickets among children as a result of inadequate vitamin D intake (Castle, 2017). Most people don’t think about it since we all get a sufficient amount of vitamin D from the sun, but since the sun is more harsh on new baby skin, the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends starting an oral vitamin D supplement within the first few days of life (Castle, 2017). All things that I'm sure you as an exemplary new mom already knew :)
References
Castle, J. (2017). 5 Nutrients Breast-feeding Moms Should Not Miss. US News and World Report. Retrieved October 2019, from https://health.usnews.com/wellness/for-parents/articles/2017-03-08/5-nutrients-breast-feeding-moms-should-not-miss.
Pregnancy, Breastfeeding and Bone Health. (2018). National Institutes of Health. Retrieved October 2019, from https://www.bones.nih.gov/health-info/bone/bone-health/pregnancy.
Um, what? No I did not know about the Vitamin D! Our pediatrician has said no such thing so I’ll bring it up to her next time. We try to go on 20 minute walks every day, partly because I need at least ten minutes of sun for enough Vitamin D but that’s fascinating, thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteAlso, my tiny baby has reflux when I drink milk so the calcium thing is a much larger concern for me than normal, I’ve had to get creative about that.
And this article just showed up pretty much about what I was saying:
https://news.ku.edu/2019/10/23/clinical-trial-infant-formula-containing-ingredient-usually-removed-during-homogenization