For information's sake

An article that won't interest most of you, but I'm posting it for information's sake. So many people shook their heads at me and warned of foods I wouldn't be able to eat anymore when I said I was going to breastfeed. I was really surprised when the nurse in the hospital said there weren't any dietary restrictions unless I noticed the baby getting fussy.

Breastmilk is undoubtedly the best source of nutrition for infants. But what if mom doesn’t eat all the right things? Will her breastmilk not be good enough for her child?
For years it was thought that the foods in a mother’s diet would affect the quality of her breast milk. Mothers were often encouraged to increase their milk or dairy consumption in order to maintain an ample supply and to avoid eating certain foods like garlicky or spicy foods because they could cause the baby to become fussy or colicky.
There seemed to be quite a lot of restrictions on the mother’s actions in order to do something that was supposed to be natural.
However in recent years women have been told that there is not one specific diet for all breastfeeding mothers to follow because her diet will not affect the quality of her milk. More and more doctors are now urging mothers to continue the same well-balanced diet they followed during pregnancy throughout their breastfeeding relationship.
Breastfeeding can be stressful enough, and it seems far better for a mother to eat a well-balanced diet that satisfies her appetite than to obsess over each thing she eats.
Indeed, research now suggests that a mother’s diet affects the quantity of breastmilk that she produces rather than the quality of its composition. Therefore certain foods needn’t be avoided to preserve the milk’s quality unless there is a family history of food allergies. The quality of breastmilk is said to be fairly consistent amongst breastfeeding mothers that eat a healthy and varied diet.
It seems that only in very extreme cases will a mother’s diet adversely affect the quality of her breastmilk. La Leche League even goes as far to say that "anything you are happy eating is okay for you to eat while you are breastfeeding."
That's a relief!
This article was contributed by Elizabeth from Breast Pumps Direct. As a nursing mother to her 1 year old daughter and a breastfeeding counselor, she spends a great deal of time everyday thinking, talking and writing about breastfeeding basics and breastmilk.