Breast-Feeding Helps Moms to Lose Weight
NEW YORK—New moms may be better able to return to their pre-pregnancy weight by exclusively breast-feeding their infants, according to new research.“The practice of exclusive breast-feeding helps mothers lose the weight accumulated during pregnancy and do that faster compared to those who don’t practice exclusive breast-feeding,”
Dr. Alex Kojo Anderson, of the University of Georgia in Athens, told Reuters Health.Anderson and colleagues compared pre-pregnancy and at-delivery weight, with weight at 12 weeks after delivery, among 24 mothers, aged 19 to 42 years. Seventeen of these new moms exclusively breast-fed their infants, while nine mothers mixed-fed their infants, using formula or a combination of formula and breast milk.According to the findings, published online in the International Breast-feeding Journal, during the first 4 weeks after delivery, mothers in the mixed-feeding group lost more of their at-delivery weight than did mothers who exclusively breast-fed.
However, from 8 to 12 weeks, this trend reversed.When Anderson’s team compared the women’s post-pregnancy weight loss according to their pre-pregnancy weight, mothers who exclusively breast-fed lost more weight at 2-, 4, 8-, and 12-weeks after delivery than did mothers in the mixed-feeding group.This weight loss trend was evident in spite of the greater caloric intake and lower activity level among breast-feeding mothers, compared with mixed-feeding mothers, the investigators found.Moreover, “the trend in percent body fat loss was statistically significant among exclusive breast-feeding mothers and not the other group of mothers,” Anderson added.“
Our results provide further evidence that exclusive breast-feeding promotes greater weight loss than mixed feeding among mothers even in the early postpartum period,” Anderson and colleagues say. Encouraging mothers to exclusively breastfeed their infants is one way to help these women avoid becoming overweight or obese, they conclude.
Source: International Breastfeeding Journal, August 2008
Last UpdatedSep 24, 2008
