This morning we have been talking all about breastfeeding while pregnant. Here are a summary of the main points:
*You can breastfeed while pregnant without fear of miscarriage. Your uterus is well protected against pre-term labor. The general rule of thumb is that if you’re cleared to have sex, you can breastfeed as well.
*Since most women who are pregnant and nursing are not nursing a newborn infant. Since they are nursing an older baby, that baby should have other sources of nutrition besides breastfeeding. If they are exclusively being breastfed, mom should seek to provide additional nutrition. . .but still doesn’t have to wean entirely.
Now we’re going to look at whether or not breastfeeding will take valuable nutrition away from your growing fetus.
Well Nourished Mothers and Well Balance Diets
To date, there has not been a study published regarding well nourished mothers and nursing during pregnancy and nutritional sufficiency. We do know that mothers who are not well nourished during pregnancy, who are not gaining weight within normal parameters and who do not eat well balanced diets probably cannot support both being pregnant and nursing and infant.
However, where the mother is well nourished, eating a well balanced diet and gaining weight within normal parameters, it is perfectly reasonable for her to believe that her body can support all three processes. Generally speaking, if mom eats when she’s hungry and drinks when she’s thirsty, she should have no problems fulfilling her nutritional needs.
We do have a small study of 57 mothers who nursed while pregnant and all gave birth to normal weight babies. (Moscone 1993) Also there have been independent reviews of both breastfeeding and pregnancy as separate events that lead researchers to believe that one does not have to succomb to the other.
I am certainly not a scientific study, but have nursed at least partially through each of my pregnancies and have given birth to healthy weight babies. Even the twins–where I nursed my third daughter almost 24 weeks into the pregnancy–were born full term and at healthy weights. (A rare occurrence for twins.)
I have one more blog on things to consider when you’re nursing while pregnant. Come back tomorrow to check it out!
Valorie Delp shares recipes and kitchen tips in the food blog, solves breastfeeding problems, shares parenting tips, and current research in the baby blog, and insight, resources and ideas as a regular guest blogger in the homeschooling blog. To read more articles by Valorie Delp, click here.
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