Postpartum Nutrition: How to nourish your body during your recovery phase
You have just created a miracle! You held a baby in your womb for many, many months and labored through an intense birthing experience. In my eyes, you are a superwoman and your body is incredible! Now it is even more important to honor that body by providing the proper nourishment to keep it strong and stable.
After birth, your body goes through a series of changes. Your hormones fluctuate, your blood sugar tries to stabilize, your gut bacteria shifts, your uterus shrinks down, your connective tissues try to rebound, your breasts begin producing milk, and your skin regains elasticity. There is so much support that nutrition can provide for all of these processes.
Nourishing foods filled with proteins, collagen, healthy fats, earthy carbs, and grounding herbs and spices will provide with the support you need for recovery. Long-cooked foods like bone broths, stews, soups, and porridges are great staples. These foods will give you the nutrients needed to heal your body, provide you with energy, stabilize your hormones, and soothe your soul.
These nourishing foods also mean that animal proteins are essential. The amino acids you receive from animal proteins, along with the vitamins and minerals, bring your body back into balance. These foods date back hundreds of years to our ancestors. People from all ethnic backgrounds hold recipes made from animal proteins for postpartum care. This means eggs, fatty fish, other seafood, and pasture-raised, organic beef, chicken and pork.
Plant foods are important too, such as properly prepared nuts, seeds, oats, quinoa and root vegetables. These will also help with stabilizing blood sugar and sustaining energy.
As much as you may feel like getting your pre-baby body back, now is not the time to start cutting calories. Your body actually needs more nutrients postpartum than in pregnancy, especially if you are breastfeeding. Depending on your birth experience, you could have wound healing, tissue repair needs, blood loss and/or surgery recovery needs. It is extra crucial to support your body while it tries to restore itself and be strong enough to support a new life.
The needs of a new baby are physically demanding, straight up. The lack of sleep does not help when your body is trying to find balance again. There are many things you won’t be able to control, but nutrition is one that you can! It is the most powerful tool you can use to help you meet all requests of new motherhood.
Balancing breakfast, lunch and dinner with healthy protein, fats and carbohydrates is the best way to sustain you through the day. But as a new mother, I know that it can be difficult to find the time to prepare and eat a properly balanced meal. Crockpot and Instapot meals are great ideas to provide you with those long-cooked nourishing foods, while also making enough for leftovers. You can even make a big batch and freeze half for another time.
If you are part of a new mom’s group, creating a recipe exchange train is a great idea. Each mom on the group creates one meal per week and makes enough for the other moms. Then you create a drop-off/exchange day where you can dole out the meals to one another. This way you only have to cook once, but you have enough meals for the week!
Self-care doesn’t need to stop once you start caring for your baby. Your health and recovery are important to you both and proper nutrition will definitely be your best friend. During your early postpartum time, remember to tell yourself that you are beautiful, strong, courageous, and enough. Your soul needs nourishing too.