Bananas while breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is that difficult period in a woman's life when you want something tasty and healthy, but you need to choose the menu more carefully, because its components can get into breast milk and provoke a completely unpredictable effect on the baby. For this reason, most products are not recommended for mothers, but bananas, it would seem, should be exclusively beneficial. Is this really so - we will figure it out below.

Benefit and harm

When breastfeeding, the female body needs more nutrients than usual, especially since there are no other sources of useful vitamins and microelements for a newborn. Banana, like any other fruit, is good for the body, and nursing mothers usually not only do not prohibit it, but even recommend it. This product is available all year round and is especially appreciated for the content of the following ingredients.

Tryptophan. This substance is very effective against the stress that necessarily accompany motherhood, even if the child is the main dream of a lifetime. Moreover, stress is not only experienced by the mother, but also by the child - it is difficult for that to get used to the new living conditions, while tryptophan helps regulate sleep and recover faster after a hard day. This component also increases the ability to work, because the mother manages to cope with all tasks without problems.
Pectin. Without this component, the metabolism in the body will be much slower - it is responsible for the proper functioning of the intestines and the delivery of everything useful through the vessels to the organs.
Cellulose. This component is unlikely to get into milk, but it is useful for the mother herself, relieves the body of toxins, including those of hormonal origin. Fiber in general improves digestive processes, which is beneficial not only for young mothers, but for anyone in general.

Vitamins (mainly C and E). The mother's body is weakened by a recent pregnancy, and the child still cannot boast of amazing immunity at all, so vitamin C is an indispensable ingredient, without which the slightest infection could become a real health hazard. Vitamin E is considered essential for beauty, because many call it more useful for the mother's self-esteem, but it is also desirable for the baby to have healthy skin, hair and nails. Other vitamins present in bananas are responsible for concentration and memory, and these qualities are now extremely important for the mental development of children.
Trace elements (mainly calcium and iron, phosphorus and magnesium). Many benefits can be derived from the presented components - for example, calcium is needed for strong bones, and magnesium for stable heart function. Microelements are a building material for the body, they are needed both by the mother for recovery and by the child for the correct formation of full-fledged tissues.

In the end, lactating bananas are good because you just want to pamper yourself with something tasty, and this option is very simple (usually does not even require cooking) and is quite affordable, and also allows for a variety of menus due to existing cooking methods.

As for harm, in general, bananas are not considered a dangerous product for young mothers, but there are also risk groups. Because of its sweetness, this fruit is not allowed for regular use by diabetics and overweight people, because of its lightness, the product is undesirable for patients with high stomach acidity, thrombophlebitis and vein problems also make one think about the advisability of such a menu. None of these diagnoses means that bananas cannot be eaten at all, it is just that before including them in the diet, it is advisable to ask your doctor how justified it is.

For the rest, bananas are allowed for mothers. It should also be noted that this product is quite often accused of a specific effect on the body, which can manifest itself in different ways for each person - for example, bananas can cause constipation in some people, while for others they give a completely opposite effect. It is difficult to predict such a development of events, but if you have eaten this fruit before without any side effects even at the stage of pregnancy, then there should be no surprises.

Product selection features

Bananas can be eaten in many different ways - most people just eat these fruits fresh, but they can also be used to make a salad with cottage cheese, sour cream or cream, smoothies or puree without cooking. The product can be fried or stewed as the main ingredient in a dish, and at the same time it is an excellent addition to baked goods - various casseroles, muffins and cookies. None of the ways of eating bananas is contraindicated for lactating women, but it should be remembered that fruits baked in the oven will definitely lose some of their benefits. Heat treatment will definitely destroy some of the healthy, because stewed, baked or fried bananas are more tasty than healthy.

In this context, it is much more important to choose the right fresh fruit, especially since it is in this form that they are most often consumed. Global studies on this subject have never been carried out, however, some experts, according to their own observations, argue that it is ripe fruits that provoke constipation to a greater extent, while immature ones cause flatulence and general digestive upset.

Accordingly, choosing the right bananas can both help solve the problem and make it worse. When deciding on the purchase of certain fruits, a mother should always remember that the effect almost always extends to the child, therefore, having cured her problem, she can create the opposite problem for the baby.

Do not forget that bananas, like any other fruit, can be poisoned, especially since most consumers never wash bananas. In fact, experts advise not only to peel this fruit, but also to wash it, but not in any water, but only in hot water. Of course, this procedure will not help too much if the selected fruit is slightly spoiled. If the mother, after eating such food, shows the first signs of poisoning, measures should be taken regarding not only herself, but also regarding the child - he probably also received an infection along with milk. Fruit with a damaged skin or a torn tail is not worth buying at all - you cannot be sure that bacteria have not gotten there.

Introduction to the diet

Banana intolerance is a very rare phenomenon, and it is unlikely that it will be possible to diagnose it already at the stage of breastfeeding, therefore a woman can consume this fruit, unless the signs of rejection are too obvious. Nevertheless, such a diagnosis is also possible in special cases, and then the baby will probably never be able to eat this fruit. Be that as it may, a nursing mother should not subject the child's body to regular tests - if characteristic signs of allergy are found, and all traces indicate exactly the banana introduced into the diet, it is worth waiting at least a few weeks before trying again.

By the way, for all the supposedly safety of bananas during GW, the mother should not rush to introduce this fruit into her own diet. There are too many calories and sugar in this product, and its components that enter the children's stomach along with breast milk can easily provoke colic or start the fermentation process with all the consequences. For this reason, such an additive is not introduced into the diet either in the first week or even in the first month. It is possible to return your favorite delicacy to your own diet in the second month, but the mother cannot be initially and one hundred percent sure that such an ingredient will be perceived by the child's body without deviations.

For this reason, they act with a banana in the same way as with all other foods at the time of their first intake - at first they eat only a small piece and observe both their own reaction and the child's behavior for several hours.

If nothing has changed for the worse, the piece can be increased by continuing to monitor the baby's condition. Under favorable circumstances, over time, you can consume this fruit daily, and the amount is determined by the chosen diet or well-being, so that both do not get worse. If we talk about the bar set by doctors, then they usually consider two bananas a day an absolute ceiling for the period of breastfeeding, and even then for most women this will be too much.

Of course, you still need to correctly determine whether the child became worse from bananas. To begin with, it should be remembered that the introduction of all new ingredients occurs gradually - one at a time, otherwise it will be very difficult to determine what caused the deterioration of the condition. When introducing a banana into your own diet for the first time after giving birth, make sure that there is nothing on the menu that you would not eat before without any consequences for the health of the baby.

It is worth paying attention to how the deterioration manifests itself. So, a skin rash and redness without being tied to a specific part of the body is a clear sign of allergy, and not from contact from the outside, but any deviations in the work of the intestines are a hint of food poisoning. Such manifestations are probably unpleasant for the baby, because he will additionally warn an inattentive mother with other characteristic signs, such as a disordered sleep or increased moodiness.

Theoretically, any of these symptoms in itself may indicate that bananas are not accepted and you should not rush with them yet, but this is not certain, but if all symptoms are observed at once, this fruit will have to be excluded from mom's menu for now.

Doctor's advice

Choosing bananas correctly is only halfway to success, because you also need to eat them correctly. There is nothing complicated here, however, ignorance of the elementary rules can lead to the fact that the child will manifest negative consequences that could have been avoided. Here are some simple tips that nutritionists give to all breastfeeding moms looking to bring these fruits back into their daily diet.

Various active substances from bananas do not accumulate in the child's body, but they can lead to an overdose with abundant single use, therefore it is better to eat them one daily than two, but every other day.
Banana intolerance is usually a reaction to just one of its constituents - starch, so you can check if this fruit really caused a worsening of the condition using any other product with a high starch content.
Being a new product on the menu, a banana, even processed into breast milk, still provokes a certain reaction from the child's body, but it does not always indicate something bad - for example, the darkening of the child's stool after the mother has eaten the fruit is not a pathology in itself and does not indicate its presence.

If the baby's reaction after the mother has eaten bananas is obvious, but there is no clear certainty that this particular fruit was the cause, experts advise to wait at least three days before repeating the experiment.
Even the fact that during pregnancy a woman regularly ate this fruit without harm to her own well-being does not mean that a banana will not have a negative effect on the baby during feeding. However, if earlier the banana was still not the main part of the mother's menu, and only now she felt the desire to eat it regularly, even greater caution should be exercised - in such a situation, the product in question for the baby is unusual with one hundred percent accuracy.

In general, the recommendations of all experts, without exception, boil down to the fact that a banana is a healthy food rather than a harmful one, so you can and even need to try it. Another thing is that slowness in increasing the dosage and careful monitoring of the reaction of the child's body (and its own too) is mandatory at this stage.

Reviews

In most cases, comments from nursing mothers on maternity sites describe bananas well. Women really appreciate the opportunity to eat right, getting a full range of vitamins and minerals, because the fair sex should remain beautiful and healthy even after the birth of a child. They note that this fruit, introduced into the diet, does an excellent job with the task, especially since you can eat it every day, and in modern supermarkets it is sold all year round.

It is especially appreciated that a banana is not only healthy, but also delicious. Modern women are often on diets that prohibit most of their favorite foods, and pregnancy and breastfeeding can further cut the list of available food. In such conditions, bananas, which are an excellent dessert and are not contraindicated for consumption, turn out to be a real salvation for many. Of course, you will not be full of bananas alone, and everyday use could provoke satiety with these fruits, but numerous recipes for making desserts from bananas come to the rescue, which no one usually thinks about before.

Of course, negative reviews also come across, but such that bananas are completely prohibited on the recommendation of a doctor is almost never met. Adverse consequences are either temporary, when the child just needs to be given time for his body to get a little stronger and get used to the mother's new food, or are provoked by the misuse of the product - in particular, a one-time overdose.

Often it is also the fact that in our country it is traditionally not accepted to wash bananas, and even the missing tail for many is not a reason to choose another fruit or at least think about washing it. In such cases, the negative experience of eating bananas by the mother remains an isolated case, and subsequent attempts to introduce it into the diet, as a rule, have already ended in success.