Eating right and having proper nutrition after having a baby is important. They provide energy to help in your recovery and allow you to get back to feeling more like yourself!
Routinely eating healthy foods after delivery will maximize the little energy you have as a new mom. If you are nursing, your food intake will impact the quality of your breast milk. And here’s another catch: When you are not getting enough nutrients from your diet, your body will provide them from your own stores. Afterall, breastmilk does not appear out of thin air!
To start, make vegetables a regular part of your diet.
Leafy green veggies like spinach, Swiss chard, and broccoli are jam-packed with vitamin A, which is good for you and your baby. Not only that, vegetables are also low in calories, are a good non-dairy source of calcium, contain vitamin C and iron.
You need vegetables, especially green leafy vegetables, to replenish your red blood cell count and help you recover faster.
From a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) point of view: Veggies such as Chinese kale, kale, spinach, lotus root, green beans, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, pumpkin, mushrooms, seaweed, carrots and asparagus are considered ‘warm’ for the body.
A new mother is encouraged to eat more ‘warm’ vegetables to counter ‘wind and cold’ that may have entered the body during childbirth.
‘Cold’ vegetables are the likes of cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, onion and beans. They also cause gas and bloating. Strongly-flavoured vegetables such as bitter gourd, garlic and cabbage may also change the taste of breastmilk.
Vegetables are rich in vitamins and antioxidants. Consuming a sufficient quantity will help the body to replenish the nutrients it needs.
New mothers who are exclusively breastfeeding should aim to eat 3 cups of vegetables a day. Those who are combining breastfeeding with formula-feeding should eat 2.5 cups of vegetables each day. This shows the amazing benefits that vegetables have on a mother’s diet!
As a new mother, your aim would be to have a well-rounded diet. This would include a variety of foods from the following groups:
fruits
vegetables
grains
dairy
protein foods
Remember, you need to take care of yourself to be the best mom you can be!