Request help by texting us (801) 513-3255

139. How To Improve Your Postpartum Nutrition In One Easy Lesson with guest Lorena Garcia From Majka

Food is Fuel. That fuel is so important, especially in the postpartum period. My guest today is sharing her expertise on the best nutrients to focus on after giving birth. This is important for your lactation. This is also important for avoiding disease in your body.

Postpartum Nutrition Study

Say "hi" to Lorena on Instagram
lovemajka.com

Love the show? Buy Bri an ice cream

 

Check to see if your insurance will cover 6 consults with Breezy Babies (for free!)

 

Join Bri's crew so we can stay in touch.

 

This podcast is not "medical advice". Please consult with your Healthcare Provider about your specific situation.

 

Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts here.

 

 

Follow along @breezy__babies on Insta for more tips and tricks.

Read the full transcript here:

Welcome to the breezy babies podcast. This is episode 139. How to Improve Your postpartum nutrition in one easy lesson. Could you use more confidence as a parent? Welcome to the happy place where boobs and babies are in good hands. Breezy babies is where we ease your transition into parenthood because it's a bumpy road. Am I right? I'm your host Bri the IBCLC. And if you'd like to make life as a parent more breezy, you're in the right place. I'm here to deliver small bite sized tips and tricks so you can crush your parenting and lactation goals. I'm honored to be on this journey with you. Let's go. Hey there friends. How are you so good to be back with you again today. I am so excited to talk to you about postpartum Nutrition. Today, I have a special guest for you who has done a lot of work. A lot of research in this area after going through her own tough journey with postpartum period and trying to keep up adequate nutrition during that time. I can't wait to share her with you. But first, I want to tell you something kind of funny. I recently started posting my Instagram reels over on YouTube because I'm making them anyway, might as well post them over on YouTube right there. They're there ready to go. And when I left down a couple of weeks ago, I came back and found that one of my videos was almost at 2 million views. And since then, it's actually gone over 2 million views. I think I last checked and it was 2.2 million views. This second seven second video that I would have never guessed for it to get that many views. And I was like, Oh, this is cool. This is exciting. And then I looked a little bit more closely at my audience who is on YouTube. And it's mostly 55 to 65 year old males in the Middle East. Not exactly my demographic. I'd say my demographic is more like 25 to 35 year old women. But still kind of fun nonetheless and can kind of give me a little bit of a laugh. So this podcast episode today is not sponsored. But I just wanted to share with you my favorite pacifier that I recommend to my clients all the time. And I'm pretty careful with you know, offering a variety of options to my clients that I meet with like for example, if they need a galactagogue or like a supplement to boost supply we'll talk about if marbling goes right for them or goat's Rue or you know, just depending on what they need, what they're looking for. We have a variety of options, and many different companies that make quality products. I found with pacifiers, however, there's one brand that really offers the biggest punch with pacifiers, because their unique design makes it so that babies can't clamp down on the nipple. And they actually have to do work to keep it in their mouth. So I really love the nene pacifier for that reason. So my babies that are having trouble with latching, having trouble with breastfeeding, maybe they need some better tone around their mouth and with the muscles in their face. I love the Nini pacifier. I do have an affiliate link. If you want to check out the Nini pacifier, it will get you 50% off at Ninico.com. I'll put the link in the show notes. You can use my affiliate discount code breezy babies for 10% off if you're interested in checking them out. It's the same geeky that I use for Mila. And let me just tell you in the beginning, she could not keep it in her mouth very well at all. And honestly, none of my kids ever took a pacifier. But we practice this with this one since I knew it had a good design. And she still loves it and uses it even now at 15 months. So again, you can use Breezy Babies for 10% off at Nene co.com And I'll put that link in the show notes if you would like to check out one of my favorite things. All right, you're ready to talk about postpartum nutrition. I just want to start by telling you one thing and that is Food is fuel. I remember that when I first learned that it was kind of like a lightbulb moment for me years and years ago when I learned that like oh like food is actually just like putting gasoline into the car. That's all it is. It's just fuel for our bodies. And turns out that fuel is so important, especially in the postpartum period. We often hear things about eating for two and what to eat and not eat while pregnant. But suddenly we give birth to a baby. And doesn't it just seem like all the conversations surrounding nutrition and what to eat just disappear. I don't know, at least that's how I felt when it came to nourishing me. Sure, if I did a Google search, I found a list of like, Oh, don't eat this if you're breastfeeding, and don't eat that, and don't eat that and don't eat this. Which, by the way, that's a topic for another day, when, when it came to actually nourishing me and my body in the postpartum period, I found there was no conversation around that. So I do have a guest for you today, before we get to her I wanted to share this cool study is called nutritional status of postpartum mothers, and associated risk factors. And it talks about where they did this. This study, it actually was done in Ethiopia. So they come and talk about the area, the district, the zone that it was done in in the title, I'm not going to try and pronounce all those words, but I will link those full study in the show notes if you want to look at it yourself. This study is from April 24 2022. So pretty recent. I want to tell you a little bit about this study. In this study, they looked at the postpartum period. And specifically, they looked from childbirth to six weeks after giving birth. They talked about how that's kind of the special stage in a mother's life with big physical changes, social changes, most emotional changes. And you talk about how a mother's body restores organ function and other body symptoms to return other body systems to return to pre pregnancy status, which is a big change, there's a lot of changes that are going on inside your body after giving birth. They specifically in this study wanted to look at diet, because they found that a poor diet in the postpartum period, can cause low immune function and make you more susceptible to disease to getting sick, which is not something that we want. They talk about how good postpartum care and having a well by balanced diet is so important for postpartum mothers. Specifically, they talk about eating a variety of foods. Have you heard of this before? Eating a large variety of foods. This actually was shared not that long ago from my from one of my colleagues who is here in Utah, she teaches about clean ingredients. Her name is Carolyn, just ingredients. Maybe you heard of her. I remember seeing a real that she did a bit ago about how she went to the grocery store and just grabbed like 10 Completely random vegetables and then just like threw them into a blender, and the importance of eating a variety of food. So in this study, they talked about how different essential nutrients are so important for the normal growth of our body and preventing disease. They also talked about having a low dietary diversity. So not eating a big range of different types of foods can lead to people being underweight, or overweight.
So you can see there, malnutrition doesn't always go hand in hand with underweight and an overweight it can go either way. So they talked about mystery how the postpartum period increases your nutritional demands, and marks a significant life transition that can impact your diet quality, and substance subsequently pre predisposes women to great risk of being overweight or under nutrition. They talk about how the poor nutritional status of mothers after childbirth is considered one of the greatest threats to global public health and a serious threat to the development of the specific countries that they were looking at in this study, which is Southeast Asia, South America and Africa and how they're really faced with widespread maternal nutrition. In these countries that they looked at in this study, they actually found that the rates of maternal malnutrition are as high as 35%. So in this study, they researched a group of mothers in Ethiopia, specifically, they looked at their height and their weight. They asked a bunch of questions about the foods they ate. They asked about they asked about their dietary diversity in a questionnaire and then the questionnaire, they asked about these 10 different food groups number one was grains, which includes white roots, tubers and plantains. Number two, they asked about pulses which is beans, peas and lentils. Three they asked about nuts and seeds for dairy, five meat and fish, six eggs, seven dark green leafy vegetables, eight, vitamin A rich fruits and vegetables, nine. Other, it's just as others 146 vegetables. 10 was others fruits. So it looks like they kind of broke it down to vitamin A rich fruits and vegetables and then just other vegetables and other fruits. So when they asked these mothers, they thought back on their diet over the last 24 hours in this in this survey, and they asked about all the foods and drinks and everything that they had consumed in the past 24 hours. Okay, so you're ready to hear what they found in this study. This is the conclusions that they came to. They found that postpartum mothers who ate a highly diversified diet were less likely to be overweight. On the other hand, they found postpartum mothers who consumed a highly diversified diet compared to a low diversified diet were 82% less likely to be underweight than normal. They go on to say that postpartum another mothers who exclusively breastfed compared to those who did not exclusively breastfeed were 71% less likely to be overweight. They said that this finding also shows that postpartum mothers who had a practice of feeding breast milk less than eight times per day, compared to those who breastfed greater than eight times per day, were 4.9 times more likely to be over weight. So they go on to say that malnutrition is influenced by two factors number one food insecurity, which happens here in the United States as well. But also number two, malnutrition can be lack of variety and one's diet. So eating a variety of foods, again, is so important for normal growth and disease prevention. I love this part. And actually, this is my favorite line from the study is that a mother's diet is thought to be a primary determinant of her health in the postpartum period. So literally what you eat your diet, in the postpartum period, is a huge factor in your health, and preventing disease. They go on to say that, in this current study, it was demonstrated that 47% of postpartum mothers consumed a poorly diversified diet, the frequency of breastfeeding made a difference among postpartum mothers, the prevalence of overweight was lower among exclusively breastfeeding mothers. This implies that the weight of postpartum mothers is directly influenced by breastfeeding practices, healthy food intake and physical activity. underweight is also associated with poor lactation performance and poor infant growth. So good, right, I really love that study and how it kind of got our wheels turning about nutrition and the postpartum period. Again, I'll link that in the show notes if you want to take a full look at the study. But no, I want to transition a little bit and introduce you to today's podcast guest. Her name is Lorena, she's going to share a bit about her own personal postpartum nutrition story and how she came to be an owner of her company called mage cup. I've actually known Lorena Garcia for years, even pre COVID. I know. Sometimes that doesn't like sometimes pre COVID just feels like a lifetime ago, doesn't it? So yes, I knew her years before COVID. In fact, we've done collaborative reels together, Instagram lives together. And I've personally sampled and tried just about every product that they have at much good. So I know you're going to love Lorena, and I'm going to turn the time over to her right now.
Hi, everyone. My name is Lorena Garcia. I am one of the cofounders and CEO of Raska. In Moscow, we're focused on helping breastfeeding moms feel their best and supporting their milk supply. We don't think about breastfeeding success as like having hundreds of little bags of milk in your freezer. We think about breastfeeding success as meeting your breastfeeding goals and making sure you feel your best as a new mom. I had a really tough time with my first son. I just thought I didn't have a lot of preparation I would say like I was just so focused on things that really like when you think about it don't necessarily matter that much like the nursery really like what was it like big little clothes and everything like that, but I had no idea. I really truly needed to be prepared for the postpartum period, right? I didn't have a lot of friends with babies. And it was just I don't know, I thought a little baby was gonna be just like a koala, right? Like, they were just hanging out with me just hanging out with me. And then it was just gonna be like all about sleeping and eating. That's what everybody told me right? If you weren't just sleep and eat, but from the moment I had my son, he was pretty evident that it wasn't going to be as easy right? Like, I remember the nurse, putting my baby on my chest and just like not being able to get the baby to latch. I didn't know because of thyroid issues that I had since I was a teenager and my milk supply was gonna take a little bit of time to establish and calm so I was having a lot of like, insecurities about feeding my baby, I did not have the right information or the right tools to understand, okay, like, how can I maybe incorporate formula like, do I need a lactation consultant? How do I establish my supply, I overall fell to so much guilt around, not being able to feed my baby, while at the same time not feeling well. Ultimately, just to kind of like summarize my journey, like, I ended up understanding that I needed help with my supply, I worked with a lactation consultant, but at the same time, I was able to work on my supply and be able to fully breastfeed my baby. But at the same time, I was feeling just overall physically that right and I was trying to be that supermom that everybody wants to be and do everything. And one day, my dad found me in my glove bed and he said, I was crying, I had already gone back to work. And my dad just asked me and he's like, Lorena, do you love your baby? And I was offended by the question. But of course, I love my baby. And he said, Well, the only thing your baby needs is a happy and healthy mom. And that, for me was just kind of like a breaking point. Like I started doing things differently. I started prioritizing myself without feeling guilt. And that's when I truly understood that when it comes to postpartum and breastfeeding, and specifically about breastfeeding, like there's just so much emphasis in like, what are you going to eat when you're pregnant? Right? The nutritional needs of baby the nutritional needs of mom. But there's been a lot of conversation around postpartum, like, I remember after I had my baby, like, I asked my OB being the type A that I am, I was like, well, what's the plan now? Like, what do I need to eat? Like, what do I need to do? And she was like, just go home and enjoy your baby. And I'll see you in six weeks. And I feel like that is just not the right advice. Like, I feel like we're not bringing into the conversation, how important so many things are in the postpartum period, or just for today, like nutrition, right? We're so focused on it, like I said, on pregnancy, but what about postpartum So today, I'm gonna talk to you about like, the importance of nutrition in postpartum and breastfeeding, and just giving you like three tips or three takeaways that you can take the view, because I also feel like as long as and then only getting to the good side problem is that, as moms, everything that happens to us like, Oh, I'm exhausted as a new mom, or like, I'm losing a lot of my hair, everything is dismissed as normal. But not because something is common is normal. I feel like we have the power to control how we feel if we have the right community. If we have the right information and the right tools, we can be in control of our postpartum journey. And we can be in control of how we feel. Because the better we are, the better we can show up for the people that we love most. So specifically, when it comes to nutrition needs postpartum, you have to remember that you're eating for three very important things. I would even say for when so replenishing, when you're babysitting your belly, your baby's taking all of your nutrients stores, right like they're thinking your iron, you're saying your V 12, essential fatty acids. So in postpartum, you're eating to replenish those nutrients. You're also eating to recover no matter what kind of delivery you have, the mom needs major healing and recovery to account for the block loss and one healing that requires after having a baby and you need all of those nutrients, right. So and also you're eating to nourish, and especially if you're breastfeeding, breast milk will get first dibs on many nutrients like calcium, for example,
also leaving you the mom depleted. So nutrition keeps mom and baby adequately nourished. So in postpartum, like remember, it's not just about eating to feel full, but you're actually eating to replenish, recover and nourish. And as a breastfeeding mom, there's not a lot of conversation around this topic, but also what can you actually eat can impact the quality of your breast milk so your diet will not affect the concentrations in breast milk of calories in macronutrients like protein and micronutrients, like folate, and like trace minerals. So regardless of what you eat, your milk will have those. However, your maternal diet does impact the concentration of some very important nutrients like B vitamins like v one, v, two V, three V six b 12, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin K, choline, that is super important. Fatty Acids, like omega threes like DHA, selenium, iodine, all of those concentrations in your restaurant are impacted by your diet. And I think it's such an empowering concept for moms to know that, yes, you're eating for you to feel good and to recover. But you're also eating to make sure that your breast milk is the best that you can for baby right I once I read a quote that really stuck with me, that it said that it was it was biologically impossible for a mom that doesn't either have that nutrient store or is not consuming it to be able to pass it on to her baby, right. And once I heard that, it just makes total sense to me. And I'm not telling you this just to kind of like scare you or anything like that, like breast milk is incredible. It is liquid gold, it has some incredible immunological benefits, but you have the mom through your nutrition have the power to make sure that it has everything and more than your baby needs. So now on to the second takeaway that we're gonna be talking about today. And it's about what are some of like the highlight or important nutrients that you should be paying attention to during this postpartum breastfeeding period. Right. So DHEA is one of the most important ones super important for mom and baby, for baby brain and eye development for mom, very important for mental health, even for depression, and it's anti inflammatory. And remember, your the amount that you're consuming through your diet determines the amount of DHEA that's available for your baby in your breast milk. So DHA, one of our highlight nutrients, some of the best sources, salmon, if you like salmon, they're really good source of DHA, I would say between two to three servings of fatty fish or salmon for WIC, or you can supplement with DHA and EPA, those are so easy to find if you're vegan. Now there's like plant based sources as well. So just make sure that you're incorporating it through either your diet or through supplementation. Vitamin D is another very important one, vitamin D for mom and baby. Vitamin D very important for moms mental health as well for depression, bone health, immune system, same as for the baby. And you've probably seen it when you go to your pediatrician and you're breastfeeding your baby, they're telling you to either put some drops on a vitamin D on your restaurant or to actually use supplements. So super important as well. Some of the best sources of vitamin D are salmon again. So salmon is really what you would consider, I would say, a superfood for postpartum and breastfeeding. You can also find it on fortified products like dairy, egg yolks. And mom, I would say the recommendation is for mom to take at least 6000 I use a day if exclusively breastfeeding or giving baby 400 I use per day. So I personally think it's much better if you actually just do it through your diet, but you can totally supplement baby as well. And then some of the other important nutrients are iron, calcium, very important as well. Vitamin D, like we spoke about him and choline. Choline is very important as well you can get some eggs from beef. And choline is one of those nutrients that we spoke about that in breast milk gets transferred to baby. And it's very important for brain development. So those are some of like the highlight nutrients that are really important for you and for baby as well. And then as a third takeaway, I just wanted to share some general guiding principles for your nutrition, postpartum and breastfeeding. And those would be to eat enough protein A lot of us are not necessarily eating enough protein and fiber assays. But when you're breastfeeding is really really important. Also protein and fiber are really good for feeling satiated. So you know when you're breastfeeding your soul hungry. So they're really really good for that if you want to incorporate them into all of your meals. I think that would be perfect. I would aim for around 30 grams of protein per meal. And then also like don't think about I feel like all of us after we have a baby majority of us like want to go back to our weight or anything like that. And sometimes we think about cutting things off from our diet. But I would say instead of thinking of like what you can cut off, think about what you can include. And think about nutrient density, what is actually nourishing you. So not necessarily thinking about all the things that you need to take away, but taking the approach of actually eating a nutrient dense and as much as you can whole foods diet. I think that's amazing for postpartum instead of thinking of all the calorie restrictions or things that you can actually need or want to take away. Focus on just how nutrient dense if food that you're eating is. So caught your eye size, your quality over quantity, and then make sure that you're incorporating like some complex carbs, protein and healthy fats. Your complex carbs, like your sweet potato, for example, will be good to stabilize your blood sugar, it'll be good to fuel your microbiome and help with constipation, your protein like I was saying a little bit ago, super important for one healing, healthy weight, making sure that you feel fascinated, and then your healthy fats, very good for balancing hormones, helping with that membrane that we all have, and then regulating your hunger. So that's a little bit of information on postpartum nutrition. I hope you guys enjoyed it. I hope you guys found it useful. And if you have any questions just find us at loadmaster on Instagram. Thank you.
Thank you again to my friend Lorena for coming on and talking about nutrition in the postpartum period my take home message from everything that she said was increase your protein, increase your fiber also focus on nutrient dense food I talk about this all the time with my clients Whole Foods are so important vegetables, fruits, real food from the earth not processed if you want to say hello to Lorena get to know her and our company a little bit better. You can go to add love much cut on Instagram. And like I said, tried many of their products and love the quality of those. So thanks again to her for being our podcast guest come back next week for some more fun. And of course I'm going to leave you with your strong you're smart, you're beautiful, you're good friends all bye. If you would like more help, check us out at breezy babies.com. It's the happy place for boobs and babies, where you can take an online workshop on topics from breastfeeding to baby gas. Learn baby massage, get a pumping plan before returning to work and even get one on one lactation help from our IBCLCs we meet with families both in home and also all over the world via secure video and guess what? These lactation consultations might even be covered by your insurance. Click the link in the show notes or visit breezy babies.com to see if you qualify. Also connect with us at breezy babies on Instagram and YouTube.

Intro to this episode.
0:00

My favorite pacifier.
2:31

Food is fuel for our bodies.
4:34

The importance of eating a variety of foods.
6:33

The conclusions of the study.
10:59

Nutrition and the postpartum period.
13:12

How to prepare for the postpartum period.
14:46

Nutrition needs in postpartum.
18:37

The importance of Dha and Vitamin D.
21:41

Guiding principles for postpartum nutrition.
24:13

Leave a comment

Please note, comments must be approved before they are published