Parents, Children and Family

Hi guys,

My husband is the one with MS (CIS in September, OMS right away, no relapses) but I follow the diet as well. My husband got diagnosed at the end of my pregnancy so I carried the "regular" diet till delivery and for a few weeks after. We had a little boy. He is 2.5 months old and is not gaining weight very well. I haven't been very good about adding oil to my diet. Mostly because I wasn't loosing weight so I was not worried about it. But now I wonder if my effectively super low fat diet is manifesting in my breast milk - as lacking in fat content. I found conflicting data on the internet (I know shocking ) about effects of mom's diet on breast milk.

I started chugging Flax (4TBSP spread out through the day) yesterday and am going to make sure to eat a cold salad each day topped with a lot of EVOO…

I was just wondering if anybody else was experiencing the same effects on the baby. My breast milk volume is not an issue. My daughter was smaller at delivery and weighed more than him by over a pound by now.

Either way I will post how my flax chugging effects him in case some other mom comes looking for data…

Vex

You don't say where you are but in the uk growth charts are supposed to now use breast fed babies but some places still use formula based growth charts.
That might be of use I guess your son has his own growth rate.

[Karen Law]

Everything I have read suggests that breast milk is the absolute last thing to be affected if the mother's diet is lacking in any way at all - and an OMS diet is not lacking in anything anyway, except perhaps vitamin B12 over a long period of time. Apparently the mother can be quite undernourished and still produce reasonable quality breast milk. Overall I would have thought you have just improved the quality of your breast milk via your new diet. Hard to draw conclusions based on a statistical sample of two, but of course being a parent you are concerned! My guess is that it has more to do with the individual growth rate of your new baby, and very little to do with the fat content of your diet. As you say, you yourself are not losing weight. Please post about your progress, I'd be really interested to see if the flax makes a difference.

Karen

Thank you for your feedback and encouragement. I will certainly feed the information back one way or another… Like you said Karen it is hard to make any conclusion based on my experience but in case the information is useful at some point to somebody

Thanks ladies
Love this community
V.

Hi V
I agree with the above posts, breastfeeding growth charts are available and mums quality of milk is what the baby needs at each stage (leaving vit b12 out of discussion). Your son may just be following his own curve on the charts. Mums do need to look after themselves though to help with quantity of milk being produced, rest, food, fluid, stress reduction (not always so easy for new mum). It may be worth getting some support from a breastfeeding group and/or community nurse to help you work out if he really isn't gaining enough and what to do if he isn't. Hope this helps. Pm me if you like Jodie

In the UK breast feed charts are now supposed to be the standard/norm NICE put this in place a good few years ago now, but some midwives had I gathered still used the formula ones...

Dear V.,

you get so worried with babies, don't you?
The last post to you sounded really sensible: the breastfeeding Group and so on.

My daughter was 2350g at birth and always at the low end of the growing Chart. And still is (20 years in April).

My pediatrician offered to have a look at the Baby every month so I could calm down. And I asked other mothers how they handled any Problems.

My very personal opinion: breastfeeding is the best you can offer your son and if he seems satisfied after drinking (can be every two hours) and if his Skin is not limp or so everything should be ok.

But the Nurse definitely is a good idea.

Have fun with your Baby!

Joe (female)

Thank you ladies for your support. I have upped my good oil consumption and will report how that worked. So far it is too early to tell.
Regardless of weight gain he is a happy, healthy looking boy So I will focus on that.
We joke that he might be trying out for the next Calvin Klein model audition!

Sincere thanks
V.

Hello,

I m having a baby girl and i m fedup with breast feeding now, i want to take baby formula for her, can anyone tell me which one is better formula for her?

Thanks