Supplements for a Nursing Mother

Hello all,
My wife has taken up training since January, and has been doing awesome. She has dropped 29 Pounds and is more motivated to go to the gym than I am!

However, we were discussing supplements the other day. Whenever people ask about supps, I generally ask if they have their diet and workout is at least 90% of where they want it. If so, THEN they can look into supplements, and only if they have a history of some success.

Well, my wife is such a person. She has really proven herself to be motivated and consistent. I should add that she has had a serious calf strain and arm surgery during this time period. Nonetheless, she adjusted her program and continues to progress. 

 So anyway, she asked if I would recommend any supps to her, and I said no because she is nursing. Nornmally, I would have recommended HRX, as I have had success with this. 

So my question for Cy is whether there are any supps here which are safe for nursing mothers. Probably not, but I thought I would ask anyway.

JF

Most of the basic ones are safe. Protein, various vitamins and minerals etc. all can be helpful to the baby. Fish oil would definately be beneficial.

[quote]Todd23 wrote:
Most of the basic ones are safe. Protein, various vitamins and minerals etc. all can be helpful to the baby. Fish oil would definately be beneficial.[/quote]

This is what I thought. Stick with the basics, eh? :slight_smile:

JF

[quote]Jesus_Freak wrote:
Todd23 wrote:
Most of the basic ones are safe. Protein, various vitamins and minerals etc. all can be helpful to the baby. Fish oil would definately be beneficial.

This is what I thought. Stick with the basics, eh? :slight_smile:

JF[/quote]

I know that the common belief here is that the toxins in fish oil are removed, and I know that a baby needs omega threes for brain development, but I still couldn’t give them to my baby’s mother even though I know how good the polys are. I guess I trust them for an adult, but not for a baby. If there are any mercury or toxins in them, it would be much worse for them than an omega three deficient diet. Baby’s are much more vulnerable than adults when it comes to tolerance with foreign substances. Even Flameout states for pregnant and nursing mothers to not take it. Just my take.

But, I fed her alot of Grow when she was pregnant. Baby’s really strong, maybe just a coincidence though.

[quote]YoungElias wrote:
I know that the common belief here is that the toxins in fish oil are removed, and I know that a baby needs omega threes for brain development, but I still couldn’t give them to my baby’s mother even though I know how good the polys are. I guess I trust them for an adult, but not for a baby. If there are any mercury or toxins in them, it would be much worse for them than an omega three deficient diet. Baby’s are much more vulnerable than adults when it comes to tolerance with foreign substances. Even Flameout states for pregnant and nursing mothers to not take it. Just my take.

[/quote]

Why not just buy some high quality ones that don’t have heavy metals?

Jesus_Freak,

While I think one could argue that supplements such as protein powders consisting of whey and fish oils and so forth are likely fine and can be consumed in some fashion via whole foods anyhow, I still think it’s best to avoid supplements that have not been specifically studied for safe use during lactation. While some things are more than likely very safe, I still feel that it wouldn’t be right to recommend doing so unless it has been specifically addressed in the scientific literature.

I would recommend that your wife stick to whole foods until she is finished nursing. Things like HRX are definitely not recommended.

Hope that helps.

[quote]Jesus_Freak wrote:
Hello all,
My wife has taken up training since January, and has been doing awesome. She has dropped 29 Pounds and is more motivated to go to the gym than I am!

However, we were discussing supplements the other day. Whenever people ask about supps, I generally ask if they have their diet and workout is at least 90% of where they want it. If so, THEN they can look into supplements, and only if they have a history of some success.

Well, my wife is such a person. She has really proven herself to be motivated and consistent. I should add that she has had a serious calf strain and arm surgery during this time period. Nonetheless, she adjusted her program and continues to progress. 

 So anyway, she asked if I would recommend any supps to her, and I said no because she is nursing. Nornmally, I would have recommended HRX, as I have had success with this. 

So my question for Cy is whether there are any supps here which are safe for nursing mothers. Probably not, but I thought I would ask anyway.

JF[/quote]

[quote]MODOK wrote:
Fish oil will not harm a mother or her child. Good grief! I think he was more interested in knowing about supplements with pharmacological action, such as HOT-ROX. I’m a pharmacist, and I wouldn’t reccomend any of those types of supplements at all. There simply isn’t the studies to know for sure if the compound is transferred into breat milk. Not even a very large number of actual drugs have been tested in that regard. So be safe, and avoid the exotic herbals till after she stops lactating.

For her now, a good multivitamin, protein or meal replacement, and fish oil is the way to go, along with plenty of good vegetables and fruits, so she can make some delicious nutritious milk.[/quote]

MODOK is spot on as usual. There just isn’t much if any data to go on.

I must have had at least a half dozen phone conversations with one of my sisters who was concerned about using phentermine while nursing. While neither of us could locate any data on whether it is excreted in to breast milk, we determined the anecdotal evidence was sufficient. That is, my nephew was up until 4 AM running around the house singing what one can barely make out as “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, though in his version it was 1, 3, 2 strikes you’re out. :slight_smile:

[quote]Cy Willson wrote:
MODOK wrote:
Fish oil will not harm a mother or her child. Good grief! I think he was more interested in knowing about supplements with pharmacological action, such as HOT-ROX. I’m a pharmacist, and I wouldn’t reccomend any of those types of supplements at all. There simply isn’t the studies to know for sure if the compound is transferred into breat milk. Not even a very large number of actual drugs have been tested in that regard. So be safe, and avoid the exotic herbals till after she stops lactating.

For her now, a good multivitamin, protein or meal replacement, and fish oil is the way to go, along with plenty of good vegetables and fruits, so she can make some delicious nutritious milk.

MODOK is spot on as usual. There just isn’t much if any data to go on.

I must have had at least a half dozen phone conversations with one of my sisters who was concerned about using phentermine while nursing. While neither of us could locate any data on whether it is excreted in to breast milk, we determined the anecdotal evidence was sufficient. That is, my nephew was up until 4 AM running around the house singing what one can barely make out as “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”, though in his version it was 1, 3, 2 strikes you’re out. :-)[/quote]

Modok, CY
Thank you so much for your replies. Both of them confirm what I thought was correct, but I wanted to wirte in and make sure. My wife is a La Leche Leadue consultant, so we are also quite aware of the affect different compounds can have upon the nursing baby, and that it is actually quite a complicated thing to figure out what one can and cannot take while nursing. The interesting thing to note is that, from what I understand, compounds making their way into breast milk have more to do with the size of the molecule than with the strength of the drug. This ends up with some strange results; sometimes things you would think are relatively harmless build up in the milk and some major heavy duty drugs are filtered out quite easily…

JF

[quote]MODOK wrote:
Fish oil will not harm a mother or her child. Good grief! I think he was more interested in knowing about supplements with pharmacological action, such as HOT-ROX. I’m a pharmacist, and I wouldn’t reccomend any of those types of supplements at all. There simply isn’t the studies to know for sure if the compound is transferred into breat milk. Not even a very large number of actual drugs have been tested in that regard. So be safe, and avoid the exotic herbals till after she stops lactating.

For her now, a good multivitamin, protein or meal replacement, and fish oil is the way to go, along with plenty of good vegetables and fruits, so she can make some delicious nutritious milk.[/quote]

I guess I’m an overprotective father…

Ig you’re worried about contaminents in fish oil, go for krill oil instead.

[quote]MODOK wrote:
YoungElias wrote:
MODOK wrote:
Fish oil will not harm a mother or her child. Good grief! I think he was more interested in knowing about supplements with pharmacological action, such as HOT-ROX. I’m a pharmacist, and I wouldn’t reccomend any of those types of supplements at all. There simply isn’t the studies to know for sure if the compound is transferred into breat milk. Not even a very large number of actual drugs have been tested in that regard. So be safe, and avoid the exotic herbals till after she stops lactating.

For her now, a good multivitamin, protein or meal replacement, and fish oil is the way to go, along with plenty of good vegetables and fruits, so she can make some delicious nutritious milk.

I guess I’m an overprotective father…

Never! You are an engaged father, and I wish we had about a billion more like you that cared that much about their child’s well being. Always be on the safe side,I didn’t mean to sound like I was minimizing your concern.

[/quote]

Thanks for that. I didn’t mean to infer that I was going to start feeding it to my baby either :slight_smile:

Cheers