Table of Contents
Tips for exercise while breastfeeding
Exercising helps to reduce stress and help with depression. Maintaining some level of fitness can help you improving your stamina and mental health, without reducing your milk supply.
1. Start with core strengthening and low impact exercises:
Get yourself assessed for diastasis recti with your physical therapist and start with core strengthening gradually. Walking is a brilliant exercise and you can take your baby along with you in the evening. Post 6 weeks of your delivery, you can begin with cardio training and circuit training.
2. Maintain a good and healthy diet:
Consume at least 2400 kcal per day approximately so that you don’t feel weak, as breastfeeding also leads to weight loss and burns 550 kcal per day. Not eating enough can also lead to lower milk supply when you start exercising and feel weakness. Keeping a check on your diet post childbirth is important.
3. Keep yourself hydrated:
Drink three to four litres of water daily as your milk contains 80 percent of water. Do not hydrate yourself before, during or immediately after the workout.
4. Wear a comfortable bra that fits well:
Wear a sports bra which is neither too tight nor too lose to get good support during high impact exercises.
5. Feeding time:
Feed your baby or pump milk before exercising as it’s tough to workout with engorged breasts and it can feel uncomfortable.
Sometimes with strenuous workouts, there is lactic acid accumulation in the bloodstream, making the breast milk a little sour to taste. Some babies are affected by this, while others are not. If your baby refuses to feed, it may be a good idea to pump some milk out and then latch the baby to feed. Or you can pump out before the workout and feed the baby with that milk. Another way out is feeding the baby after an hour post workout so that lactic acid washes away from the breast milk.
