Breastfeeding - Mother's Diet

Susan Schulman: Most important thing is that the mother and the baby both have to be happy. Mother has to get some rest during the day if she is going to get up to feed the baby, the mother has to eat enough that to nourish herself. The mother should be on a nice balanced diet. She should be able to eat the foods that she likes. She should be able to enjoy her life if the breast feeding is hanging on her and she is not having a good time with it. It's not good for the baby to have an unhappy mother.

The mothers who breast feed, usually do take care of themselves. They realize that by taking care of themselves, they are also taking care of the baby, and if you find that you are breast feeding and you are not happy with it, nothing is more important to the baby then that the mother should be well adjusted and happy.

So, you take care of yourself. Go ahead and nurse your baby, if it's good for you and the baby and if it doesn't work good, you don't feel guilty about it. You just do the best you can.

Host: Is there any foods in a mother's diet that she should be careful not to add too much of it if she is pursuing?

Susan Schulman: No, she does really go out to eat anything. If the baby has a terrible stomach aches, the foods that I tell the mothers to avoid and that's only if it's a fussy baby and most babies do not get fussy from the mother's milk. There are few vegetables that don't seem to agree with the baby. One is onions in any form, one is green paper, and broccoli, and cauliflower. All the other salad vegetables, all of the other cooked vegetables do not upset a baby's stomach, but I do not like the mothers drinking juice. Any kind of juice that they drink can cause a baby to get very colicky or get pains in their abdomen and they cry, they get gassy. So I always tell mothers not to drink juice. They can just about eat anything they want, but they should drink lots of water, they should have milk everyday and they can have herbal teas, but not fruit juices. Fruit juices are not good for the moms.

Host: Thank you Dr. Schulman, it's a pleasure.

Susan Schulman: My pleasure.


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