Nutrition for a nursing mother according to Komarovsky: menu in table form, principles of diet for breastfeeding, dish options

Eliminate from diet

All advice from a famous pediatrician is advisory in nature, however, in matters of nutrition, the doctor adheres to a position of perseverance. First of all, foods that provoke allergies are excluded: citrus fruits, chocolate, strawberries, eggs, seafood. The mother, especially in the first days and weeks, should carefully monitor the baby’s reaction to the new product she has eaten. If you have doubts about any product, the doctor advises you to first eat a small amount of it and, depending on the child’s reaction, decide whether it is worth including it in the diet in the future.

All products that can cause milk to change its taste and smell and become unpleasant to the baby are excluded from the diet. This group includes sour, salty, spicy dishes, and strong-smelling seasonings. A number of foods (legumes, cabbage, carbonated drinks) have a bad effect on the baby's intestines. Their consumption can increase gas production and in some cases cause diarrhea.

To digest fatty foods, the body requires additional effort; with increased fat content of breast milk, it is difficult for the baby to suck it out, and for the mother to express it. Therefore, the doctor does not recommend saturating food with fatty foods (fat sour cream, butter, pork, nuts), which will make milk more nutritious, but also difficult to digest. At the same time, vegetable fats are given preference over animal fats.

Menu for a nursing mother according to Komarovsky

Based on the doctor’s recommendations, you can create a daily menu that will include a variety of foods that will allow your mother to always feel full and satisfied.

Table: meal options for nursing women

Meal times	Meal options
Breakfast	rice porridge with butter, tea, biscuits; cottage cheese casserole with sour cream, tea, crackers; corn porridge with butter, tea, a piece of cheese; macaroni and cheese, tea, hard biscuits; buckwheat porridge with butter, rosehip infusion; millet porridge with butter, tea, crackers; oatmeal with butter, yogurt.
Dinner	vegetable broth soup with lean meatballs, stewed vegetables, bread, dried fruit compote; vegetable broth soup with buckwheat, bread, mashed potatoes, steamed turkey, apple compote; lean fish and rice soup, bread, stewed zucchini with lean pork, grape juice; cabbage soup with sour cream, bread, meatballs with sour cream, rosehip infusion; turkey soup with pasta, stewed vegetables with steamed rabbit meat, bread, dried apricot compote; soup of lean pork and vegetables, bread, baked pollock with potatoes, carrot juice; vegetable broth soup with fish balls, bread, pasta with steamed veal cutlet, dried fruit compote.
Afternoon snack	banana; baked pear or apple; natural yogurt.
Dinner	pork baked with potatoes, tea; pasta with butter and cheese, dried fruit compote; dumplings stuffed with lean meat, sour cream, rosehip infusion; rice, steamed fish cutlets, tea; cottage cheese with sour cream and dried fruits, apple juice; steamed rice and veal, tea; apple casserole with cottage cheese, tea.
Second dinner	kefir; fermented baked milk; unsweetened natural drinking yogurt; tea and biscuits or hard biscuits without additives.

Diet of a nursing mother

A mother’s nutritious diet is the main source for the child to receive the substances necessary for development.

What to eat and drink:

Meat and fish (low-fat);
Dairy and fermented milk products (milk, fermented baked milk, kefir, etc.);
Vegetables and fruits: cherries, watermelon, grapes, apples, pears, apricots. We also read: fruits during breastfeeding and vegetables during breastfeeding;
Dried fruits (dried apricots, raisins) and compote made from them;
Greenery;
Green tea;
Not dried or salted fish;
Stewed, baked and boiled dishes.

We also read: what can a nursing mother eat - list of products

You should not eat or drink:

Fatty dishes (including fatty broth);
Coffee;
Spicy, salty, sour dishes;
Smoked and fried foods;
All types of conservation;
Cocoa and cocoa-containing products (sweets and chocolate);
Sweets containing buttercream;
Peas;
Citrus fruits (oranges, tangerines, lemons);
Baking with yeast;
The berries are red;
Mushrooms.

Read also: what a nursing mother should not eat

The daily diet should contain at least 0.5 kg of fresh fruit. If the mother is slim enough and can afford it, Komarovsky recommends eating a plate of semolina at night. All products that a mother accustoms her baby to during pregnancy and breastfeeding will subsequently be accepted by the child with pleasure, because these are familiar foods.

Dietary recommendations

Read a detailed article about nutrition for a nursing mother here

A well-known pediatrician advises to be very careful about the presence of exotic fruits or imported products in your diet. Such food is obviously unknown to our digestive system and its absorption by the body may be incomplete. The occurrence of stress on the liver or pancreas negatively affects breast milk.

The doctor gives some more advice:

Avoid overeating. It would be healthier to undereat a little;
If you have an obsessive desire to eat something forbidden, you can “discourage the desire” with a tiny amount of this product;
Doubts about the product should lead to complete rejection of it;
You should not eat at night;
If circumstances forced you to drink alcohol, then a little red wine is acceptable;
Taking vitamin complexes should be regular.

Read also: Top 10 nutrition rules for a nursing mother

When is it time to stop breastfeeding?

Author:

Bondar Yulia

4 minutes

8499

There are a great many opinions on this matter: the time when it is time to wean a child from the breast varies from several months to infinity from the point of view of supporters of self-weaning. But this issue has always been considered from the point of view of benefit for the baby. What does medicine say about what timing of involution will be useful not for the child, but for the woman?

What is lactation involution?

Involution of lactation (from Latin involutio - coagulation) is a physiological process that ends the period of breastfeeding. This biological mechanism starts 40 days after the baby was last put to the breast. From the moment involution begins, the mammary glands decrease in size and stop producing breast milk. Typically, the involution process is recommended to be carried out gradually so that the child can adapt to the new way of receiving food, and also learns to calm down without attaching to the mother's breast.

Under normal conditions, lactation will continue in each mammary gland until milk is removed from it - and this phenomenon, the same for animals and humans, is used in agriculture. As the volume of milk production decreases, its composition changes: the content of fat and immunoglobulins increases, and the level of lactose decreases. If lactation is not stopped forcibly, it can continue until the child self-weans; under natural conditions this usually occurs at 2 - 2.5 years.

The process starts when the pituitary gland stops producing enough of the hormone prolactin. Milk production continues for some time after suction has stopped. As they write in WHO materials, “if in most mammals “drying out” occurs on the 5th day after the last feeding, then the period of involution in women lasts on average 40 days. During this period, it is relatively easy to restore full lactation if the baby resumes frequent sucking.”

Thus, as soon as breastfeeding becomes rare and short-lived, the process of involution begins. This can happen at any time - it is known that sometimes children themselves refuse breastfeeding for a variety of reasons, which need to be discussed separately. Protein synthesis is inhibited and structural changes in the mammary gland occur - the reverse replacement of glandular tissue with adipose tissue begins, which allows the breasts to return to their previous size and shape.

Signs of lactation involution

If involution occurs naturally, it usually begins when the child is two years old. At this time, the frequency of attachments naturally decreases: the child develops other interests, including an interest in “adult” food. How can a nursing mother understand that involution has begun?

The breasts slightly decrease in size and do not fill with milk, even if you do not feed for more than 12-24 hours. That is why if at this time the baby stops sucking the breast, this does not cause the mother any distress or suffering from excess milk. Milk, in composition, properties and appearance, increasingly resembles colostrum.

The baby's sucking activity increases noticeably. This happens because milk production decreases, and the baby still tries to suck the same amount of milk. During one feeding, a baby can be applied to one breast, then to the other - and so on several times. The period of such sucking activity can last up to several months.

Psychological readiness of the mother for weaning. This is a very important sign that should not be ignored. As soon as a nursing mother feels tired from breastfeeding, this is a sign that the process is either incorrectly regulated or, if there have been no problems with lactation so far, is coming to an end.

Psychological readiness of the child for weaning. Typically, by the age of two, the child has socialized, ceases to have an urgent need for tactile contact with the mother, and begins to receive the necessary nutrients from other sources. The child gradually loses psychological need

Forced involution

If there is a need to wean your baby ahead of schedule, then you need to be prepared for the following consequences:

pain and discomfort in the mammary glands of varying degrees of intensity;
formation of compactions in the mammary glands;
increased body temperature;
deterioration of general condition;
purulent-inflammatory complications (breast abscess and mastitis).

If the need to interrupt lactation is related to medical indications, then involution must be carried out under the supervision of a doctor. What should you do first? Reduce the number of feedings by offering the baby a different food source. In addition, strict control over fluid intake and its limitation is necessary, and additional pumping may be required in order to avoid stagnation of milk.

If you feel tired from breastfeeding

The psychological state of a nursing mother is a very important criterion that needs to be paid close attention to. Lactation is a very energy- and resource-intensive project for the female body, and it is not surprising that sooner or later exhaustion occurs. Some breastfeeding mothers can wait for natural involution without any problems, but for many there comes a time when, due to fatigue, continuing to feed is impossible. Unfortunately, this objective situation (the amount of strength and resources is strictly individual) often causes a feeling of guilt in a nursing mother, since advertising of the need for breastfeeding before self-weaning has reached its maximum in recent years. What needs to be assessed at this moment? On one side of the scale is the benefit for the child, and on the other is the psychological and physical comfort of the mother.

Many in such a situation will choose the comfort of the mother, and they will be right. How long breastfeeding will continue is up to her to decide, since only she can assess the degree of her exhaustion. After all, there are now excellent breast milk substitutes, and a calm and rested mother is an irreplaceable resource that cannot be replaced by anything.

Many experts say that breastfeeding until one and a half years of age may be optimal. Thus, the famous pediatrician Dr. Komarovsky recommends starting to correct breastfeeding starting from the age of one year: at this age it is time to introduce calming rituals that replace breastfeeding, and also gradually reduce the number of daily feedings. WHO recommendations to breastfeed children for more than two years, according to Komarovsky, are due to high infant mortality rates in Asia and Africa, where the life of a child often directly depends on how long his mother breastfeeds. As soon as breastfeeding ends in countries with an objective shortage of water and with a high prevalence of intestinal infections, the child's life is at risk, so long-term breastfeeding in such countries saves children's lives.

For European countries, the situation with high infant mortality is not relevant. Therefore, in our realities, it is necessary to make a decision on involution of breastfeeding based on the needs of the child and the condition of the mother.