How to Reduce Toxins in Your Breast Milk (for Breastfeeding Mothers)

Unquestionably, breast milk is by far the most nutritious food for a newborn baby. However, there are every day products and foods that may actually taint your breast milk with toxins or other unwanted substances. These tips will help you nurse your baby with the very best milk you can give.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Perfume:
   Avoid using perfumes or fragrances in your body creams and soaps. Fragrances are absorbed into the body and passed on into breast milk. This may actually change the taste and the smell of the milk, as well as possibly tainting it with chemicals, depending on the derivative of the fragrance.
2. Caffeine and Alcohol:
   Limit or completely eliminate your intake of caffeine or alcohol as these do pass on to the baby and may cause excitability, drowsiness or worse effects in your baby. If you chose to consume these beverages, discuss with your pediatrician how to do this safely. Cooking with alcohol should be safe as alcohol evaporates with cooking.
3. Food Allergies:
   Reduce or eliminate these highly allergic foods as these proteins do pass in the breast milk: dairy, soy, eggs, peanuts and treenuts.
   
   Any early exposure to these proteins may increase your baby's chances of developing an allergy to these proteins.
4. Storing Milk:
   Avoid freezing milk unnecessarily in plastic bags as extreme temperatures (hot and cold) cause dioxins to seep into liquids. If possible, store in the refrigerator until ready to use and warm on the counter at room temperature for 5 - 10 minutes. Refrigerated milk should be used within 3-5 days. Check with your local LaLeche league if you are unsure how to do this.
   
   There are some studies that prove that storing in glass is not a better or worse alternative as essential fats may stick to glass. Use your discretion for storing milk in either plastic or glass.
5. Vitamins:
   Continue taking your prenatal vitamins. Babies will get all their vitamins from their mother and even rob her of much needed calcium in her bones if she is not consuming enough calcium.
   
   Although it may be possible to get enough vitamins and minerals from food, it is not easy and you will find you will need to eat all day and night long to get enough.
6. Body Massages:
   Be aware that body massages release toxic chemicals from your muscles which are flushed during excretion through sweat glands, urine and you guessed it...breast milk.
   
   The best suggestion I can give is, use massage in moderation, drink plenty of water and pump and dump immediately following a massage.
7. Toxic fumes.
   Inhaled toxic fumes make their way into the bloodstream and breast milk. I strongly suggest avoiding toxic fumes.
   
   Toxic fumes can be found in conventional house cleaning products. Now is a good time to start going green and either make your own cleaners or buy over the counter cleaners that do not contain chemicals.
   
   The nail salon is probably not a very good idea until you stop nursing.

Tips & Warnings

• check out my forum on www.greenmomma.tv for tips on living a non-toxic life.