Women with pregnancy have been highly vulnerable throughout the entire covid-19 pandemic across the world, with major apprehensions observed during the breastfeeding phase. While the World Health Organization (WHO) has clearly stated that a woman should continue breastfeeding even if she is a suspected or a confirmed case of covid-19, efforts are still needed to spread this word!
World breastfeeding week is a global campaign which is celebrated every year in first week of August. This campaign is aimed at raising awareness about breastfeeding and ensuring exclusive breastfeeding practices for the first 6 months. With the ongoing pandemic, it is nearly certain for all mothers to panic if they are a suspected or confirmed case of covid-19. We herewith present a few nutrition tips for mothers in order to promote quick recovery and good health without adversely affecting their breastfeeding journey.
Before beginning it is extremely essential to state that all mothers need to take all following precautions while breastfeeding, if they are confirmed cases of covid-19 infection:
- washing hands before and after touching the baby,
- wearing a mask while feeding and
- disinfecting the commonly touched surfaces
- Easily digestible homemade foods: Food should be well cooked. Raw foods may carry chances of contamination and may lead to abdominal discomfort in the mother which may further hamper the breastfeeding process. Hence, it is advisable to consume well cooked food.
- Healthy fluids: It is important to ensure a high fluid intake during symptoms like fever. Mothers can prefer hot or warm fluids like vegetable soups. These soups may be prepared using veg or non-veg stock/ broth, this will ensure addition of proteins to the soups. In order to add extra proteins, mothers can also add dals to the soups; for example tomato and moong dal soup, brocolli and sprouted moong soup.
- Good quality proteins: Why are we emphasizing more on proteins? Reason is our body needs protein sources to fight infection. Hence, during covid-19 infection it is vital to ensure intake of good quality proteins like cereal-protein combinations (complimentary proteins – in order to know more about complimentary proteins. Mothers should ensure at least 2-3 servings of dal/ pulses, 2-3 servings of milk and milk products daily. If required, they may dilute the whole(full fat) milk before consuming.
- Processed foods: Processed foods like jams, jellies, sauces, pre-mixes, etc contain high amount of artificial flavors and colours. These artificial sources may pose an uninvited threat in the mothers health during the breastfeeding phase or even later and hence should be kept at bay.
- Excessive sugar and salt: Excessive sugar and salt both may pose a threat to not only mothers but all healthy individuals too. Excessive sugar and salt consumption during fragile stages like covid-19 infection may lead to various other health concerns including mood swings, hence they should be avoided.
- Excess fats: Mothers do not need any extra fats in order to breastfeed their kids. These extra fats on the other hand, can also hamper smooth breastfeeding. Normal fat diet containing vegetable oils/ ghee/ etc can be preferred over butter/ margarine/ dalda, etc.
- If the mother has to be quarantined, how can she feed her baby?
- Should mothers switch to formula feeding during covid-19 infection?
- Do mothers need extra foods for adequate milk secretion during covid-19 infection?
- Is it important for mothers to drink herbs based immunity boosting kadhas?
- Can mothers have outside food during covid-19 infection, if she is not able to cook food for herself ?
- Why is it recommended for mothers to continue breastfeeding during covid-19 infection?