Postpartum Care for Mom
Life changes profoundly during postpartum after the new baby arrives! The entire family dynamic is reshuffled. If it is the first child, the husband and wife become parents. A single child becomes a big brother or sister. The current baby becomes an older sibling. Schedules change; sleep patterns are disrupted; visitors come and go. The mother is entirely focused on her new baby, ideally with help from caring relatives and friends.
It is easy for everyone to forget that profound hormonal changes are occurring in the new mother. There is simply no other situation in healthy human physiology that comes remotely close to the speed and magnitude of the hormonal readjustments that happen to a new mother.
Mom’s first meal after labor is the best meal many women have ever had! I still savor the memories of the biggest and tastiest pizza I ever ate. Our best neighbors brought it to us after a very long labor ending with the birth of our third child. These neighbors had kept our two older children at their house during the labor and birth. Thankfully, they arrived soon afterwards with the kids (and the pizza).
Here is the story they told us: When Ron finally called them with the news and they told John, who was six, and Rosemary, who was four, that Mom and Dad had a baby boy, and so now they had a new baby brother. “But I wanted a girl brother!” Rosemary wailed.
Emotional Nurturing
When it comes to “postpartum nutrition,” the emotional nurturing of the mother comes first.
Birth is an intense physical stress. The adjustment to the new baby is an intense emotional stress. The excitement of it all is an intense overall stress, albeit a positive one. Having trusted helpers around who know how to reduce that stress will provide the mother with joyful memories for the rest of her life.
Conversely, thoughtless remarks that she might construe as a criticism during this hormonally and emotionally unsettled time will easily upset her. The new mother needs complete support and as much rest as she can get. She needs the positive assurance that everything around her is being taken care of.
One of the nicest things that you can do for a new mother is to drop off a meal. Spend a few minutes to congratulate the family and admire the baby.
Breastfeeding
The physical stress of late pregnancy far exceeds the physical stress of breastfeeding. Before the baby is born, you are not only eating for him (or her), but you are also breathing oxygen for him and excreting his wastes. You are carrying him around in an internal bathtub “24/7,” as they say. As a breastfeeding mother of a young baby, you are now only eating for him, and carrying him some of the time. But that is a job, too!
Ideally, as you get started, you should have the assistance of at least one experienced, compassionate woman who has nursed her own babies successfully.
Water is the first nutrient that you need as a breastfeeding mother, and you need to make sure you are drinking enough, whether or not your sense of thirst is a reliable guide. Just as you can judge your baby’s fluid intake by his or her output, you can get a sense of the adequacy of your own input by your output. When you are fully breastfeeding, you are producing as much urine as before you were pregnant.
That means you need to drink considerably more than when you were pregnant.
Many women experience a distinct sensation of thirst when the baby first latches on — it relates to the hormonal response of milk “letdown.” It is a good idea to keep a large water bottle handy so that you can drink plenty of water before that sensation fades.
Diet
You will likely find that your appetite drops after the birth compared to when you were pregnant. It is usual to lose some weight immediately, and then to gradually lose the “baby weight.” A modified version of the Brewer diet will serve you well as you breastfeed. High-quality protein and natural fat in the diet are the most important of the major nutrients for milk production.
If you are tolerant of milk, you will probably agree that “milk makes milk.” On the other hand, if you do not drink milk or use dairy products, substituting two servings of meat or fish for a quart of milk enables you to keep up your protein.
About 50 percent of the calories that breast milk provides comes from fats. The fat composition of breast milk reflects the mother’s diet. Eating trans fats is to be avoided, as they end up in the breast milk. Using olive oil and expeller-pressed canola oil helps to provide the fatty acids that the baby requires.
Plenty of nursing mothers find that certain foods make their babies fussy, but that does not mean that a food that seemed to bother your older child will necessarily bother the newest one. Lists of foods that bother some babies often include caffeine-containing drinks and foods, spicy foods, and gas-producing vegetables. As a baby gets older, foods that you may have had to avoid earlier may be fine for you to eat.
— This article is an excerpt from Marilyn Shannon’s book Fertility, Cycles and Nutrition. Marilyn was a tenured, part-time instructor of biology at Indiana University Purdue University at Fort Wayne, Indiana, where she has taught human anatomy and physiology for more than 30 years.
Get Marilyn Shannon’s take on everything from basic nutrition to foods that target problems associated with infertility, menopause, and more. Her book, Fertility, Cycles & Nutrition is a staple for many NFP families and is available here.
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