When a baby does not gain enough weight and is being breastfed, there are many people who tell the mother that it will probably be because his milk does not feed him. This happens because even today the myth that says that there are women who make very good milk and others who have watered milk, or even the myth that says that women who eat better have better milk, and that Those who eat worse have less nutritious milk.
In both cases we talk about myths, because it has been known for a while, and now a new study corroborates it, that breast milk of all mothers is good.
Study Data
The research was conducted in Spain and has been published in the journal Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism. In addition, she was recently awarded the 2016 Maese Alonso Prize of the Medical Association of Huelva.
Knowing that the potential benefits of breastfeeding can be explained by the presence in milk of certain components that help neurological development and in the general maturation of the organs, the researchers decided to measure these components in some way and see what the difference was in women who did not take supplements during pregnancy (apart from folic acid in the first trimester), women who took multivitamins and women who took an iodine supplement with folic acid in the first months.
The study included 37 nursing mothers of healthy babies that were divided into the three groups of mothers. The milk of the three women was analyzed after delivery (colostrum actually), at 15 days after delivery and a third sample at 30 days.
All the milk turned out to be good
Although what was expected (logically) was that women who took multivitamins had a better milk than those who had taken only iodine, or no supplement, the results showed that the milk of all mothers was equally good for their babies, and that supplementation during pregnancy did not make it better.
As we read in Huelva Good News, in statements by Inés Velasco López, research leader:
We knew that the children of women who consume these supplements have better developmental tests and try to find out if there were differences in breast milk, but there are none. In the initial milk there are great advantages of the supplements, but as they are breastfeeding they are matched, so the milk is good regardless of what the mother consumes. That reinforces the idea that there are no bad milks and they are also better the more time you spend breastfeeding, that is, at 30 days the properties of milk are better than at two days. The properties linked to development and other metabolic factors of 15 in 15 days are progressing, milk becomes more beneficial as time passes. This is in line with the fact that the effect of breastfeeding on the development of children is greater the longer it is maintained.
So women don't have to drink iodine?
Actually yes, because the amount of iodine in breast milk depends on the mother's consumption. Although the WHO considers that Spain is not a country at risk of iodine deficiency, in practice it is seen that there are many children with low levels, and this affects your psychomotor and intellectual development.
For this reason, based on available studies, it is recommended that women take an iodine supplement throughout breastfeeding. The Breastfeeding Committee of the Spanish Association of Pediatrics states that such supplementation would be as follows:
The iodine needs in the nursing woman are estimated at 250-300 µg / day. Since salt consumption may be reduced in that period (iodized salt is the recommended source of iodine for everyone), a supplement of 200 µg of iodine per day in the form of potassium iodide is advised during the lactation period , whether a single child is breastfed or if they are twins or siblings (breastfeeding in tandem).
So, although All women have a good and completely nutritious milk for their children, so that there is no lack of iodine, it is recommended that everyone take a supplement of this mineral. Apart from this recommendation, The diet of a nursing mother may be the same as she had before pregnancy, although it should always be recommended that it be as healthy as possible for their health and because in the end the diet of babies, when they already eat, ends up resembling that carried by parents. In this way, The healthier parents eat, the more likely they are to eat healthy children too..
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