Postpartum Diet Plan: Tips For Healthy Eating After Giving Birth

It’s no secret that the food we eat fuels our daily activities — an especially important point when those daily activities include caring for a newborn and breastfeeding.

But for many new mamas, the desire to lose the baby weight may take precedence over nourishing their body with the right foods to support recovery, milk production, rest, and all the other tasks required to get through the day.

Significantly reducing overall carbohydrate intake — the go-to weight loss strategy for many women — is not your best bet postpartum. Carbohydrates are necessary for new moms — not just for breast milk production, but also for mental health, hormone regulation, and more.

The good news it is possible to slowly shed a few pounds (if that’s your goal!) while still eating enough calories to keep up with the physical and mental demands of caring for your little one. The key is to be patient, eat well-rounded meals, and give yourself time.

Postpartum diet guidelines

Choose a wide variety of foods from all food groups. During the postpartum period, focus on filling up on healthy sources of:

• protein
• fruit
• vegetables
• fiber-rich carbs
• fats like avocados, nuts, and seeds

Keep in mind that caloric intake and appropriate macronutrient ranges vary depending on your activity levels, body size, and more. Plus, if you have a health condition like diabetes, you may need to follow a different dietary pattern in order to optimize blood sugar control. Every woman’s nutrition needs are different and depend on many factors

Stay hydrated all day long

Hydration, especially if breastfeeding, is critical. Health recommends up to 3 liters of water daily. However, hydration needs can vary so it’s best to let thirst be your guide. A good way to gauge hydration is by looking at the color of your urine. Pale yellow urine indicates proper hydration while dark-colored urine indicates that you may be dehydrated and need to up your water intake

Keep an eye on your calories

Fueling your body with the right amount of calories will help keep your energy and milk supply up. Accordingly, a breastfeeding mother should consume approximately 2,300 to 2,500 calories per day compared to 1,800 to 2,000 calories for a non-breastfeeding woman.

However, individual calorie needs are highly variable and depend on body size, age, activity level, and how much you’re breastfeeding. Remember weight loss is ideally slow and gradual.

If you’re trying to lose weight while breastfeeding, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics says a slow weight loss of 1 pound per week or 4 pounds per month is ideal.

Continue prenatal vitamins

Breastfeeding mothers should continue taking a prenatal vitamin, or a vitamin specific to postnatal mothers. If you’re not breastfeeding but would like the additional nutrients, talk to your doctor for recommendations.

Curb your caffeine intake

While the small amount of caffeine that passes from you to the baby through breast milk is not known to adversely affect your infant, health recommends sticking to 300 milligrams or less per day.

Minimize empty calories

Aim to minimize snack foods and items that are high in added sugar, sodium, and saturated fat, including fried foods, soft drinks, and desserts.

Avoid fish high in mercury

If you’re breastfeeding, avoid high-mercury seafood and fish like orange roughy, tuna, king mackerel, marlin, shark, swordfish, or tilefish. Instead, opt for salmon, shrimp, cod, tilapia, trout, and halibut, among others.

Limit alcohol while breastfeeding

Although many women decide to avoid alcohol while breastfeeding, if you choose to drink, do so in moderation, and try to limit it to after breastfeeding or wait 2 to 3 hours after having a drink to breastfeed.

Postpartum diet and milk supply

Exclusively breastfeeding women require approximately 400 to 500 additional calories per day beyond what is recommended for those who are not breastfeeding, according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

If you’re nursing, don’t fret if the pounds don’t come off right away. For some women, breastfeeding helps them lose baby weight more quickly than non-breastfeeding mothers.

Although weight loss is slower during the first 3 months of breastfeeding due to new moms increasing calorie intake to meet the demands of producing milk, weight loss seems to increase after the 3-month mark when lactating moms are more likely to burn fat stores.

Other women may notice increased fat stores on their hips or legs until breastfeeding stops. This is likely because breast milk draws from lower body maternal fat stores in order to support infant brain development.

To keep your milk supply up and nourish your body, it’s critical to focus on consuming whole food sources of:

• healthy fats
• proteins
• carbohydrates

For example, eggs and fatty fish are excellent sources of protein and healthy fats while vegetables, whole grains, and fruits provide fiber-rich carb sources. Nuts, seeds, avocados, and full-fat yogurt are more examples of healthy fat sources.

Not only are these foods a great source of protein, fat, and carbs, but these whole foods are packed with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that help promote overall health.

Breast milk is generally composed of 87 percent water, 3.8 percent fat, 1.0 percent protein, and 7 percent lactose. Amazingly, even if your daily nutrient intake doesn’t meet the recommended amounts, your milk will still provide sufficient nutrition for your baby.

That doesn’t mean you should cut back on necessary carbohydrates, protein, or fat, however. Doing so will just leave you more depleted and run down as your body uses everything it can to make milk for your baby.

While general nutrition recommendations suggest that complex carbohydrates should make up about 45 to 64 percent of your daily caloric intake when breastfeeding, it’s important to tailor your diet based on factors like overall health and activity levels.

Women who have high blood sugar may need to eat fewer carbs to optimize blood sugar control, while highly active women may need more. It’s important to work with your healthcare team to come up with an individualized plan that meets your nutrient demands while optimizing overall health.

Postpartum diet and hormones

There are many ways to help your hormones recalibrate postpartum, but it does take time, and we shouldn’t expect it to happen overnight. There is usually an estrogen dominance in comparison to progesterone, and since it takes almost a year to have a baby, it should take time for your body to find its new normal.

Estrogen dominance can play a big role in whether you are able to successfully lose weight postpartum because excess estrogen can lead to weight gain. So can high levels of cortisol — the stress hormone, which is made in excess when you’re not getting enough sleep.

Everyone’s postpartum hormone timeline will vary, and that’s OK. Hormones can be influenced by many things including diet, sleep patterns (or lack of sleep!), and overall stress.

Food can affect the production and secretion of hormones — the hormone insulin is secreted with the detection of carbohydrate consumption, so choosing portion sizes that are right for our body can help ensure a healthy secretion of insulin, and help us prevent unnecessary weight gain. Hormones can, in turn, influence our food choices: ghrelin, our “hunger” hormone, and leptin, the “I’m satisfied” hormone.

Hence the following is recommended:

• Couple protein with moderate carbohydrate consumption to help prevent blood sugars from elevating too quickly, thus preventing your pancreas from being overwhelmed to produce insulin.
• Choose fewer processed, and packaged foods, and focus on whole foods that are rich in protein, fiber, antioxidants, and healthy fats.
• Continue prenatal vitamin routine for up to a year to help support hormone and vitamin/mineral balance.
• Try to carve out time for some activity/exercise. Walking, yoga, Pilates, and swimming can all be great choices.

A postpartum diet is similar to what pregnant women need to eat, especially when breastfeeding. This includes:

• Predominantly whole foods — lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, good quality proteins (eggs, chicken, fish, seafood, nuts/seeds, organic tofu, full-fat dairy).
• Whole sources of carbohydrates like fruit, whole grains, and starchy vegetables pair carb sources with filling, protein-rich foods like eggs, chicken, beans, nuts, and seeds.
• Healthy fats help with satiety, but focus on portion sizes that promote health and prevent added weight gain.

Also the following guidelines can help when planning meals:

• Include healthy protein sources at each meal.
• Include vegetables in at least two meals.
• Start your day with fiber in conjunction with protein for the perfect combo of energy and sustenance (plus, fiber can help with post-labor constipation).
• Eat foods rich in nutrients like vitamin C, zinc, and selenium to help keep your immune system strong.

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