Breastfeeding Week...and Weight Loss

In case you haven't heard, it's International Breastfeeding Week, designated as such, I assume, by lactation organizations. So in its honor, I've decided to post some links and some of my own thoughts about this endlessly contentious issue

First, a couple of great links:
If you want to find a truly hilarious post about the benefits of breastfeeding, see this post at MODG blog, in which this mom of "G" explains how breastfeeding you do such things as catch up on your DVR recordings.

If you are interested in hearing more about breastfeeding from someone who couldn't, read Moosh in Indy's lovely post about her struggles, and her final recognition its what's in the heart that really matters.

Now My Thoughts:
As is the case with almost every mother out there, I have so many thoughts--always evolving, ever changing--about breast feeding. I could probably write a whole memoir devoted to the topic (but who would read it?). Since the MODG post brought it up--and because it's been on mind as of late--I want to focus on just one issue that has always bugged me about the debates on the topic: the oft-quoted correlation between breast-feeding and weight loss.

As MODG quotes, breastfeeding burns something like 500 extra calories a day. At least that's what the experts will tell you, in an apparently anxious effort to get the vainest among us to breastfeed as much as possible. What they don't say: you have to eat a lot of extra food to keep up. If you sign up for weight watchers, for example, you'll find a special category for nursing moms that requires you to eat extra food. And if you try to diet at all, you risk losing that milk supply entirely. Meanwhile, for the first couple of months, you are nursing so often you could hardly find the time to work out; in fact, at first, you're kind of a slug. I'm not trying to discourage anyone from breastfeeding, I just don't think that this should be your reason.

Breastfeeding will help...definitely help...to reduce that post-pregnancy bulge. But often it takes a lot time to drop that final five pounds, and even longer to drop the little bit of post pregnancy-squishiness around the middle that seems to haunt us moms. If you are someone like me, who is not naturally-thin, it means you have to spend some real time working out (here's where an awesome co-parent helps). It took me more than 18-mths to finally fit into the skinnier jeans that I wore before pregnancy. The good news, though, it did happen.

So in honor of International Breastfeeding week, I'm celebrating something a little different. I'm celebrating that nursing is life-changing, and body-altering, but also temporary. Breastfeeding will change you in many ways--and you can sometimes feel like your body is not your own--but there will come a day when you'll feel like your old self again.