How to Replenish Your Body Postpartum
Postpartum nutrient replenishment is a real need for all moms.
Growing a human is a nutrient-demanding process, but the postpartum period has its own requirements, too. In utero, babies take nutrients from their mothers, often leaving them depleted. But then once they’re born, moms need a great deal of nourishment to heal, support breastfeeding, and rebalance and replenish in the face of stress and sleep deprivation.
The degree of depletion a new mom experiences can occur on a spectrum and is influenced by factors like nutritional status prior to pregnancy, spacing of pregnancies, breastfeeding, stress, and more.
It can seem like a daunting task but the reality is that true replenishment takes some time and is best done using a multifaceted approach that has its roots in nutrition.
You can build a strong foundation for replenishment and ultimately, vibrant postpartum health with these 10 key factors.
This comprehensive nutritional strategy helps new moms get the fuel and nutrients they need, balance their blood sugar and energy, reduce stress load and build resilience, support digestion and assimilation of nutrients, obtain nutrients commonly depleted in the postpartum period, and personalize their approach to fit their unique needs.
1. Eat consistent, balanced meals.
Eating regularly and balancing your plate with quality protein, carbs, and fats supports balanced blood sugar and energy and create safety for the body to reduce stress and support hormone health (our bodies don’t want to guess or stress when we’re getting food again). It also sets us up for eating more so that we eat enough. Skipping meals or “fasting” just set the stage for under-eating.
Ideally, you’re eating within the first hour you wake and every 4ish hours thereafter- either a full meal or a snack/small meal. This means that while often non-negotiable for many sleep-deprived mamas, coffee should not be a meal. On its own, it’ll raise blood sugar and deplete energy, especially if relied on heavily for “energy.” Plus, it suppresses your appetite, another barrier to eating enough!
2. Keep meals simple.
The last thing you need as a new mom is to be spending a ton of time in the kitchen and worrying about creating Pinterest-worthy meals. Nourishing, delicious food doesn’t need to be complex, and especially in this season of life, let go of the pressure.
Part of keeping things simple is taking shortcuts where you can (i.e. buying pre-chopped veggies or grabbing some plantain chips for your carb or a frozen grass-fed burger for your protein), preparing foods ahead of time (which may be as simple as cooking larger portions so you have more leftovers), and outsourcing (accepting food from loved ones especially early postpartum and enjoying takeout here and there).
3. Choose well-cooked foods.
Generally, the longer and more thorough foods are cooked, the easier they are to digest, making the nutrients more available to the body. This is especially true for many veggies and even fruits, starches, and meats. Plus, when meats are cooked slower with bones in/skin on, we extract the gelatin that is so nourishing for our bodies.
It’s common for digestion to be weakened postpartum, especially in the early days. But this can continue due to an increase in stress and a decrease in sleep and rest. Giving your body easier-to-digest foods can take some stress off your system.
4. Don’t cut calories or start a new diet.
Dieting fuels depletion. It also messes with your metabolism, including your thyroid function and hormone balance. It also ignores so much of our innate body wisdom and fails to honor the important nutrition needs of all women, especially new moms. Now’s not the time (if ever) to restrict food.
Many new moms are eager to lose the baby weight, which actually isn’t done most effectively through caloric restriction. It’s also common to correlate healthy eating with dieting, which is misguided. The best nutrition approach is the one that’s nourishing and supportive of your body, plus is enjoyable. Instead of following arbitrary food rules laid out by some diets, eat nutrient-dense foods you enjoy and obey your hunger and fullness.
5. Provide adequate fuel for breastfeeding.
The calories “burned” by breastfeeding are actually being used to make milk. Plus, nutrients from your food/your body are fortifying that milk. Replacing what your body uses helps prevent you from getting more depleted. It can also prevent a drop in your milk supply, which for many moms, is strongly dependent on food intake.
6. Focus on foods rich in nutrients you need.
There are a lot of nutrients you need postpartum and in varying amounts, so instead of driving yourself crazy with a long list of foods you must eat or trying to get certain values of each vitamin and mineral, start with a focus on eating the foods that give you the most bang for your buck so to say- like grass-fed beef and liver, bone broth, pastured egg yolks, grass-fed butter, wild sardines, oysters, nettles tea, deeply colored berries, and (cooked) dark leafy green veggies.
Access my pantry list of nourishing foods here!
7. Use quality supplements as extra support.
In an ideal world, it would be easy to get all the nutrition we need from food. But throw depletion into the mix and add on stress, depleted soil, more time spent indoors, weakened digestion, and more, it’s just really tough to do.
The right supplements can be amazingly supportive for your replenishment and overall health. But keep in mind, the wrong ones can be problematic and/or a complete waste of money. High-quality, targeted supplementation can not only help you replace key nutrients but also support digestion and hormone balance, which influences how your body absorbs and uses nutrients.
Which supplements your body may need and how much is highly individualized, but using high quality, food-based supports like grass-fed beef liver, wild cod liver oil, and food-based vitamin C, plus restoring magnesium through Epsom salt baths or another form of topical magnesium is a good foundation to build from.
Try Perfect of Hilma supplements!
8. Take deep breaths before you eat.
Life with a new baby- or a toddler or really, a child of any age- can be chaotic. Sitting down for a nice calm meal 3-4 times a day likely isn’t realistic. This is unfortunate because not only would it be nice to enjoy food in some peace and quiet, our bodies actually need to be in a relaxed state to digest best.
Taking a pause for a few full, deep, slow breaths before you dig into your meal and ideally, keeping that chill pace as you eat (as difficult as it can be) can help switch your body into the parasympathetic “rest and digest” state so that you break down your food and extract nutrients better and also lessen symptoms like bloating and constipation.
9. Give yourself more grace and try not to stress.
Food should be nourishing and with that, enjoyable- not a source of stress. Many women hear the word “depletion” and think they’re totally screwed. The reality is, having babies is a natural phenomenon. It’s demanding physically and also mentally and emotionally. But we’re not doomed. Our bodies know what to do if given the right tools.
The real reasons why so many moms struggle today are that…
1) We are lacking the village that was traditionally there to nurture new mothers!
2) We focus too much and too soon on dieting and losing the baby weight.
3) We’re under way more stress than our ancestors. It’s not because we’re flawed or our bodies aren’t strong and capable.
10. Work with a functional nutrition practitioner.
Shame-free plug here but a functional nutritionist- especially one that specializes in postpartum health- is trained to help you rebalance and replenish your body. A functional nutrition practitioner can help you with all of the above, especially taking the stress (and guesswork) out of the equation. Personalizing your nutrition approach is the best way to support your body and this means having your needs assessed in order to create a comprehensive plan to address imbalances and insufficiencies.
Learn more about the unique Root and Branch Method here.
Need more help?
Get in touch to discuss what a personalized plan to replenish your body can look like for you.