How can Fasting Affect My Breast Milk + What Should I Do When I Decide to Breastfeed during Fasting Month?

Breastfeeding your child while you’re in a period of fasting, be it for religious or dietary purposes, can be mentally and physically challenging for you after going through a day of calorie deficit. Still, you have to perform your maternal duties, but you must be wondering; is breastfeeding while fasting safe and will it affect milk production? 

Fasting Doesn’t Affect Breastfeeding

A human body is pretty magical in the sense that even during fasting, a mother’s body will still produce milk that is sufficient enough to satisfyingly feed the baby. Despite the calorie deficit, your body is able to adapt – even if you have not consumed any food for 24 hours. Quality and quantity of breast milk are not affected if you are not eating for a day because it will rely on the fats stored in your body, but it will be affected if this is prolonged for an extensive amount of days consecutively – except that there will be a change in concentration of lactose, potassium and nutrients (iron, iodine and vitamin B-12) of your breast milk. 

Though your body is fine without food, you will always feel a surge of thirst. This is because your body will release oxytocin – a natural trigger that tells your body to hydrate (with 3 litres of water), and lack of water will also affect the quantity of milk production. Opt for naturally-sweet fruit juices or even salt-water solutions when experiencing side effects of dehydration, and if those do not make you feel any better after 30 minutes, please do go make a visit to your doctor. 

However, in the case that you are losing weight rapidly within a week (up to 1 kilo), feeling light-headed or severe migraine, excrete dark-coloured urine, and are easily exhausted, you are best advised to put fasting on hold and see your doctor too. If you have a medical condition (diabetes, high blood pressure, anaemia), it would be best to avoid fasting as it could cause complications that will affect you and the baby as well. 

Practices to Remember when Breastfeeding while Fasting

Should breastfeeding while fasting become something that takes a toll on your body, you have the option of pardoning yourself from fasting for the time being. As a mother, the best thing to do is to maintain a healthy diet, staying hydrated and resting.

Tradition believes that you will need to consume an additional 330 – 600 calories on top of the usual 2,000 calories required by breastfeeding mothers per day, to help in the production of breast milk – in the form of high-carb and high-protein foods, as well as those that are packed with iron and calcium.

Another crucial practice is to constantly keep an eye on your baby’s condition, with telltale signs of constant crying, excreting green-ish faeces or lacking in producing wet diapers, and losing weight quickly, this is a sure call for you to immediately quit fasting and see a doctor.

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