The Breastfeeding And Weight Loss Connection

It is tough to deliver a healthy baby and then realize that you still have 20 or 30 pounds of pregnancy weight to lose. You would think that women would only need to gain the amount of weight needed to carry the baby, but that is not what happens. When women are pregnant, they do tend to gain a few extra pounds. Normally, this is nothing to worry about until after you have recovered from delivering your beautiful child.

What Is The Breastfeeding And Weight Loss Connection?

Did you know that breastfeeding and weight loss can go together very well? Of course, there are lots of reasons to consider breast feeding your baby. Your milk naturally delivers the right nutrients and immunities to help keep your baby healthy. Even if you need to supplement with formula, it is better if you can try to supply some of your baby's meals through natural breast feeding.

Breast feeding also gives you an advantage if you want to lose weight. Maybe this is even part of the reason why women need to gain more weight when they are pregnant than just the weight of the baby. If you have to feed your baby every day, the energy to produce that milk has to come from somewhere. Your body will burn fat in order to produce the milk. It is almost like getting an extra exercise routine in each day.

Infants are small, but they are growing very fast. Babies actually need to consume a lot more calories every day than you would think.

-- Typical infants under 6 months in age need 50 to 55 calories per pound of body weight.

-- Babies over 6 months old need about 45 calories per pound of body weight.

So this means that your little 10 pound baby needs over 500 calories a day. At six months of age, she might need to consume 900 to 1,00 calories a day if she weighs close to 20 pounds. If you continue to breastfeed, all of those calories are deducted from you - the source of their nutrition.

Of course, your older baby might also start to consume other sources of nutrition and calories, but even if you can contribute 500 calories a day to your baby, that is taken out of your own body.

Breastfeeding And Weight Loss Does Not Mean Restrictive Diets!

Breastfeeding time is not the time to go on a very restrictive diet. Any new mother will want to make sure that she consumes plenty of healthy food each day so she can deliver the right vitamins, minerals, and energy to her growing child. New moms also need plenty of energy.

If you are not sure what to eat, your doctor or a nutritionist can probably provide you with helpful suggestions or a diet plan.

However, if you do consume a normal health diet, you might find that extra baby fat (on you, not the baby) melting right off as your baby grows bigger and more healthy each day. This is an additional benefit of breastfeeding.