Best Foods to Eat While Breastfeeding

Many new moms are anxious to lose their pregnancy weight, but those who are breastfeeding should plan to lose weight gradually over time. Moms need those calories not just for the baby, but also for their own stamina when caring for a newborn. In fact, BabyCenter.com explains that losing weight too quickly releases toxins in the body that end up in the breast milk. Simply eat healthy and add in some moderate exercise and the weight should come off at a rate that is healthy for both you and your baby.

Baby is here, and you have made the important decision to breastfeed; how wonderful for both baby and you! It is just as important now as when you were pregnant to carefully consider your diet, focusing on gaining maximum nutrition. Your body needs excellent, nutrient-dense foods to recover from birth and to produce highly nutritious food that your baby will be relying on exclusively for her first few months of life.

In general, women who are breastfeeding should focus on eating a healthy, balanced diet. This is usually sufficient for proper nutrition in breast milk. According to BabyCenter.com, moms can add 200 to 500 extra calories into this diet in order to accommodate for breastfeeding.

There are some foods that stand out for the great benefits they provide babies through a mother's breast milk, including:

• Complex carbs: Complex carbs in whole grains, squash, apples, berries and brown rice are nutritious and provide energy.
• Healthy fats: These fats include mono and polyunsaturated fats, like those found in salmon, avocado and nuts, and are great for your diet.
• Proteins: Eat lean meats, eggs, nuts and other protein-packed foods for proper growth and development for your baby. Look for lean meats, dairy and eggs, and fish for your daily protein. Of course meats and fish are great sources of all the essential amino acids the body needs, but vegetarians get adequate protein without eating meat. So, nursing mothers who are also vegetarians just need to be careful about getting all the essential amino acids on a daily basis. Recent studies show that it is not necessary to get them all in one dish as long as you get them throughout the day. Because fish can be a major dietary source of toxic exposure, it's important to understand which types of fish have the lowest contaminant level and are therefore safest to eat. Not all fish are created equal. For instance, Atlantic farmed salmon has high levels of mercury and PCBs (a class of banned flame retardant chemicals), while wild-caught Alaskan salmon has low levels of mercury. And according to the USDA, Breastfeeding women should opt for canned light tuna over Albacore (white) tuna, which contains more mercury.
• Calcium: Milk, cheese and yogurt are good sources for the calcium a baby needs, just be mindful not to have too much.
• Fruits and veggies: Carrots, sweet potatoes, melons, tomatoes and other fruits and veggies provide essential vitamins and nutrients.
• Water: Make sure you're getting plenty of water. Light-colored urine is a sign that you are well-hydrated. You must get adequate liquids to produce milk, and pure water is the absolute best way to get your liquids. If you're not sure what's in your tap water, consider having it tested for heavy metals and if necessary, using a water filter to screen out contaminants.  Weak green tea, 100 percent fruit juice, milk and even soup provide liquids. Aim for ten, eight-ounce servings per day.
• Vitamins: Moms can continue taking prenatal vitamins for the first month of breastfeeding. Then, they can switch back to their regular multivitamin.