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Breastfeeding meals: hot and cold dishes

, medical expert
Last reviewed: 04.07.2025
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Breastfeeding meals can be varied even for the most demanding young mother. The main thing is that these meals have ingredients that will be useful for the baby. It is also important that different meals are properly prepared, then they will retain not only a pleasant taste, but also all the benefits.

Hot meals while breastfeeding

Eating a healthy diet is important for everyone, but it becomes even more important when you’re nursing your baby. That’s because you need more nutrients to support lactation, and in terms of quality, you’re really eating for two. What you put into your diet affects your baby’s health, as well as your own.

The cooking method itself is very important in cooking. Can a nursing mother eat fried foods? All fried foods, be it vegetables, meat or fish, involve the use of oil for frying. This method of cooking produces a lot of saturated fats, which can not only cause digestive problems for the mother, but are also harmful to the baby. Fatty foods stimulate the gallbladder, which makes it work more actively. This can cause the mother to feel pain in the abdomen or liver area, as well as stool problems. Therefore, it is not recommended for a breastfeeding mother to eat fried foods. You can use many recipes that will make the food just as tasty but less harmful.

Cooking dishes by baking, steaming or boiling are the most optimal cooking methods that preserve all the benefits of these dishes.

Can a nursing mother eat soup and borsch? Such dishes are considered the most universal hot dishes. They contain vegetables, meat or fish, so they are very nutritious and healthy.

When you're breastfeeding, it's important that you get the vitamins and minerals you need to help your baby grow and develop. Soups can be healthy and nutritious meals, providing you and your baby with important vitamins without loading you up on fat grams or calories. For maximum health benefits, choose soups that contain vegetables, lean meats, or fish.

Vegetable soup is a healthy and filling food due to its composition. Vegetable soup usually contains potatoes, carrots, onions, as well as meat and pasta. It is better to choose pasta for soup from durum wheat, then it contains many B vitamins, in particular thiamine. Thiamine is an important nutrient because it regulates the nervous system and can help increase energy levels. Carrots contain beta-carotene and vitamin A, which can help bones and teeth grow. This vegetable soup is also high in antioxidants, which protect tissue from damage and promote a healthy immune system. When preparing vegetable soup, it is important to boil all the ingredients, then all the vitamins will be preserved. You can also add other vegetables if you want. If you add spinach to your vegetable soup, your soup will be even healthier. Spinach is high in many important nutrients, including vitamin E and calcium. Bell peppers contain a lot of vitamin C, antioxidants that help your body absorb iron and boost your immune system. Broccoli contains folate, which helps support your baby’s red blood cell function.

You can make broccoli and onion puree soup, which will be a dietary and healthy dish.

Can a nursing mother eat pea soup? Pea soup is a traditional bean soup. Pea soup is high in protein and fiber, which are beneficial during lactation. Peas also contain omega-3 fatty acids, which are essential for early neurological and vision development in your baby. This soup, thanks to the peas, also contains a large number of important vitamins and minerals needed for your baby's development, including calcium and iron.

But this product has the property of swelling in the intestines and forming a large amount of gases during digestion. Therefore, often after pea soup, a mother may have bloating, and a child may have colic after feeding. Therefore, you can try to eat pea soup, but if there are such phenomena or the child is restless, then in the future you need to exclude this soup.

Pea soup can replace bean soup in terms of nutritional value. The main ingredient in this soup is black beans. Black beans are high in fiber, which helps the digestive system function properly. A high-fiber diet for a nursing mother is especially important for babies with constipation. Constipation is a common complaint in babies in the first few months, and fiber in the mother's diet can help alleviate these symptoms. Black beans also contain thiamine and a large amount of protein. Protein is needed to produce amino acids and helps restore cells. Beans do not often cause bloating, so this soup can be eaten while breastfeeding.

Ukrainian borscht contains many vegetables, including potatoes, cabbage, beets, onions, and carrots. A nursing mother can eat borscht, but it is advisable to make it with lean meats and avoid cabbage. Cabbage is a product that can cause colic in your baby. Therefore, borscht can be eaten, but without cabbage.

A nursing mother can also eat cabbage soup that contains sorrel. Sorrel contains a large number of antioxidants, which are especially good for you. The antioxidants present in vinegar will protect your cells from any damage that may occur. Sorrel has a high acid content, and it can cause heartburn when you are breastfeeding. But in addition to this, this product is one of the richest sources of vitamin C, so it will be great for the baby. If you suffer from heartburn, then you just need to reduce the amount of sorrel in the process of preparing cabbage soup, then you will preserve the benefits of this dish for yourself and the baby.

People often ask whether a nursing mother can eat dumplings. In fact, it is possible, but there will be no benefit from such a dish. Minced meat together with flour is poorly digested in the stomach. In addition, dumplings can affect your weight. Therefore, this product is allowed, but it is not useful.

Eggs are a very useful and irreplaceable protein product for a nursing mother. Eggs contain many nutrients, proteins and vitamins, including vitamin A, vitamin B2, vitamin B12, folate. Therefore, you can eat several eggs a week. A nursing mother can also eat an omelet, but it is better to steam it, which reduces the amount of fat.

Can a nursing mother eat mashed potatoes or fried potatoes? The main source of energy for your baby is glucose, which gets into the milk from carbohydrate foods like potatoes. Potatoes are known as starchy carbohydrates, meaning that they provide caloric value to the food. But in reality, potatoes are low in fat and calories, providing a huge amount of dietary fiber and vitamins B-6 and C. They also contain a large amount of folate, which is especially important during breastfeeding, as it reduces the risk of your baby developing problems with the nervous system.

Many people think about eating French fries or fried potatoes, which is not healthy food, especially when breastfeeding. Therefore, fried potatoes cannot be eaten during lactation, as they lose all their useful elements. You can eat mashed potatoes, but with an increase in cooking time, the amount of useful substances decreases. It is best to steam or bake potatoes and season them with herbs instead of oil.

Cold dishes for nursing mothers

Cold dishes, salads and vegetables can be very useful for a child during the period when there is no fresh fruit and vitamins.

Can a nursing mother eat vinaigrette? Vinaigrette is a vegetable salad made from boiled vegetables. This salad is very healthy because it contains vitamins, dietary fiber, and minerals. Beetroot is the main ingredient in vinaigrette. This vegetable contains dietary fiber, which can have a prokinetic effect and is good for constipation in children. Carrots contain carotene, which is good for vision. Because of the potato content, vinaigrette is also a filling dish, so it can be eaten as a main meal.

Can a nursing mother eat salad? Lettuce leaves can be a versatile product for making different salads. To get the maximum nutritional value, you can use vegetables such as arugula, spinach, red and iceberg lettuce. To make salad greens safe, you need to clean the greens and use them within a few days of purchase. You need to wash the greens leaf by leaf under running water, and then wipe them dry with clean paper towels. Many other vegetables, such as tomatoes, cucumbers can be added to the salad, which will provide more vitamins.

Aspic is one of the cold dishes. It is recommended for a nursing mother to eat aspic because of the benefits of this dish for joints. Aspic is prepared in such a way that a lot of calcium and connective tissue fibers are preserved during the cooking process, which activate the synthesis of cartilage tissue in the mother. This is especially important after childbirth. But it is necessary to take into account that you cannot eat fatty aspic, or one that contains a lot of onion and garlic, because this can affect the taste of breast milk.

Diet cookies are more often allowed when breastfeeding. They do not contain allergenic components and are easily digested. Pretzels or bagels are one of the options for such cookies, so pretzels can be eaten by a nursing mother. But an excess of such a flour product can cause constipation in a baby, which should also be taken into account.

Sushi is one of the most favorite dishes of many women today. But can nursing mothers eat sushi and rolls? It is quite safe to eat sushi when you are breastfeeding, but you should avoid defrosted or raw fish and seafood. You should only eat sushi made from thoroughly cooked fish. This is because raw seafood is harmful as it is susceptible to parasites and pathogens and may contain high levels of mercury. Therefore, you should give preference only to trusted services that cook from fresh fish. If you cook sushi at home, you can cook it from the freshest ingredients, which will also be safe. Another option is sushi made from vegetables or fruits. Vegetable sushi is the safest option as it replaces raw fish with vegetables. You can use cucumber, avocado, and carrots to make vegetable sushi. Although making sushi with vegetables may not be appealing, preparing it with the right ingredients can make it a delicious dish.

Can you eat pancakes while breastfeeding? If the pancakes are made with kefir, then it is highly likely that the child will not have any reaction. Pancakes made with cow's milk can cause colic in the child and stool disorders.

Can a nursing mother eat sauerkraut and stewed cabbage? Sauerkraut can be very useful because of its rich composition. One serving of sauerkraut supplies about 2 milligrams of iron, which is 7 percent of what you need each day. Iron is necessary because it is a trace mineral that prevents anemia in infants. Sauerkraut also provides folates, which prevent birth defects. The large amount of vitamin C in cabbage helps you absorb iron and promotes the development of healthy tissue. Cabbage also includes probiotics, which are good bacteria that live in your intestines and the intestines of your baby.

But it is worth remembering that a serving of sauerkraut contains 939 milligrams of sodium, which is about 41 percent of what you should consume each day. Due to the high sodium content, sauerkraut should not be a daily part of your diet. You can safely use it from time to time. If you stew such cabbage, the amount of sodium will decrease and you can eat it. But do not forget that cabbage can cause colic in children in the first three months. Therefore, a nursing mother can eat cabbage, but it should not make up the main part of her diet.

A mother can expand her diet while breastfeeding, but she must make sure that all products do not harm the baby. Breastfeeding is not such a strict diet, many dishes are allowed, but gradually. Therefore, the main principle of mother's nutrition in this case is the correct way of cooking and the benefit for you and the baby.

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