Describe the nutrient needs of a breastfeeding woman

Answer 1

A nursing woman produces about 25 ounces of milk a day, with considerable variation from woman to woman and in the same woman from time to time, depending primarily on the infant's demand for milk. Producing this milk costs a woman almost 500 kcalories per day above her regular need during the first 6 months of lactation. To meet this energy need, the woman is advised to eat foods providing an extra 330 kcalories each day. The other 170 kcalories can be drawn from the fat stores she accumulated during pregnancy. During the second 6 months of lactation, an additional 400 kcalories each day are recommended. The food energy consumed by the nursing mother should carry with it abundant nutrients. Severe energy restriction hinders milk production and can compromise the mother's health.

Women can produce milk with adequate protein, carbohydrate, fat, folate, and most minerals, even when their own supplies are limited. For these nutrients, milk quality is maintained at the expense of maternal stores. This is most evident in the case of calcium: dietary calcium has no effect on the calcium concentration of breast milk, but maternal bones lose some of their density during lactation if calcium intakes are inadequate. Such losses are generally made up quickly when lactation ends, and breastfeeding has no long-term harmful effects on women's bones. The nutrients in breast milk that are most likely to decline in response to prolonged inadequate intakes are the vitamins—especially vitamins B6, B12, A, and D. Vitamin supplementation of undernourished women appears to help normalize the vitamin concentrations in their milk and may be beneficial.