How to Plan a Vegetarian Diet for a Breast-Feeding Mom
Everyone needs to eat more calories and a larger amount of nutrients when breast-feeding, regardless of the type of diet. A vegetarian can easily breast-feed and supply both herself and her baby with the nutrition they both need.
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Things You'll Need
- Fruits
- Nutritional Yeast
- Soy Milk
- Soy Products
- Soy-based Deli Slices
- Prenatal Vitamins
Instructions
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Make sure you're consuming adequate calories. The recommended caloric intake is 500 calories above your usual intake.
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Boost your calcium intake. Eat at least four servings of calcium-rich foods every day. Good choices are calcium-fortified tofu, bok choy, broccoli, dark green leafy vegetables, calcium-fortified soy milk and cereals.
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Take a sunbath. It's the easiest way to get vitamin D, essential for bone health. All you need is about 20 minutes of sun directly on your face and hands two or three times a week. Don't use sunblock, and go out when the sun is weakest.
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Eat vitamin D-fortified foods if you don't get enough sun. It's difficult to get enough in food, unless the product is fortified with it. Examples of fortified foods are cereals or, if you eat dairy products, milk.
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Check that you get enough vitamin B-12. You need more while breast-feeding than you did during pregnancy. It's not found in most plant-based foods. Eat B-12-fortified cereal or B-12-fortified soy milk.
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Assess your iron intake. Your need for this mineral decreases after pregnancy and is lower during breast-feeding.
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Eat plenty of protein. Your need for protein increases to about 5g more than it was while you were pregnant. Protein is plentiful in plant-based foods, and soy products are particularly good sources.
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Watch your zinc intake. You can get zinc from eating whole grains and legumes; if you were supplementing while pregnant, you may need to continue.
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Eat fresh whole foods. Avoid questionable additives. Everything you eat has the possibility of ending up in your breast milk.
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Tips & Warnings
If you have a health care practitioner who is supportive of your vegetarian diet, talk to him or her about diet and see if any changes need to be made during breast-feeding.
Some brands of nutritional yeast contain B-12. It's also found in all standard multivitamins. Your health care practitioner may want you to continue with your prenatal vitamins while breast-feeding.
Some myths abound. One is that you need to drink cow's milk in order to maintain an adequate milk supply. This is false.
