Your recovery at home: What you need to know about nutrition

Your postpartum diet

Proper nutrition is essential for you to recover well and quickly, feel your best, avoid postpartum distress, and care for your baby.

• Take time to eat. The demands on your time are extreme right now, but if you don't eat well-balanced meals with adequate calories and nutrients, you'll become fatigued and you won't be able to properly care for yourself and your baby.
• Nutritious meals don't have to be expensive. Sandwiches, soups, or frozen items that can be prepared in advance work well. Keep healthy snack foods on hand: cheese, crackers, fresh fruits and vegetables, fruit juices, and milk. Vitamin C is especially important, because it helps your body absorb iron. Iron gives you added energy and helps your body recover from labor and birth.
• Get help at home from family, friends or a doula. Help with meal preparation, light housework, and baby care can provide the extra time you need for adequate rest.
• Lose weight gradually. A loss of no more than one-half to one pound per week is recommended. If weight loss is too rapid, you can't stay healthy and meet the demands of your baby. If you want to limit or eliminate junk food from your diet to help you lose weight, that is perfectly OK. But don't limit your intake of nutritious, healthy foods. Both you and your baby need you to take good care of yourself right now. Losing weight slowly while you are breastfeeding is acceptable. For specific guidelines for a healthy postpartum diet, see Nutrition -- postpartum.
• If you are formula feeding your baby, your caloric and nutrient needs will return to your pre-pregnancy levels. You must still eat well to recover and have the energy to care for yourself and your baby. Talk to your health care provider to see if the vitamin and mineral supplements you took during pregnancy are still needed.
• If you are breastfeeding you should avoid smoking and drinking large amounts of caffeine and alcohol. These substances enter your breast milk.

Important information

• If you consume 6 to 8 servings of caffeinated beverages or foods a day, your baby may become wakeful, hyperactive, fussy, and colicky.
• Smoking more than 10 cigarettes a day can decrease your milk production. Smoking directly before feeding can inhibit your milk let-down. The nicotine that passes into your breast milk can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, colic, and cramping in your baby. In addition, smoking can increase the effects of caffeine. If you do smoke, try to quit or at least cut down, and don't smoke before or during breastfeeding.
• Studies show that smoking is a factor related to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). It is important that no one be allowed to smoke anywhere near your baby. To grow strong and healthy, your baby should live in a smoke-free environment at all times.
• Alcohol has been found in breast milk. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, occasional or light drinking (no more than one drink each day) has not been found to be harmful to your nursing baby. Moderate-to-heavy drinking can interfere with milk let-down and cause other side effects. Please talk with your health care provider about the risks of drinking alcohol while breastfeeding.

For daily recommended food groups and servings for both nursing and non-nursing mothers, see Nutrition -- postpartum.

First published: 10/04/2002
Last updated: 06/19/2003

Reviewed by: Allina Patient Education experts