Exercise and Breast Milk

GREENSBORO, N.C. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Moderate exercise won't dilute the immunities in a mother's breast milk, report researchers from the University of North Carolina's department of nutrition.

The finding may help reassure new moms who read about a recent study indicating exercise lowers important immunities in breast milk. While the researchers didn't suggest women forego exercise, they did suggest they should discard milk produced during the first 30 minutes after exercise. However, note these authors, that study only tested the breast milk of women who had exercised to exhaustion.

Experts say understanding the role of exercise in breast milk is important because newborns do not have fully developed immune systems of their own and depend on mother's milk to provide protection against infections.

In this study, researchers compared the effects of aerobic exercise on breast milk immunities among a group of women who engaged in moderate exercise at least 30 minutes a day, three times a week to a group who reported exercising once a week or less over the previous six weeks. All of the women had given birth three months before the study.

Results showed no difference in three important immunities in the breast milk of the exercising and non-exercising mothers. There were no differences found in the nutritional content of the milk. Women in the exercise group, however, demonstrated a higher level of cardiovascular fitness.

The researchers suggest there is no need for lactating women to discard breast milk after periods of moderate exercise.

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