How your diet affects your breast milk

Your baby's journey of food discovery starts much earlier than you may realise. Long before you introduce those first tastes of baby rice and purées, the things that you eat and drink are transferred to your baby via your breast milk, and can affect its flavour from one day to the next.

The benefits of breast milk
The constantly changing nature of breast milk gives babies an early opportunity to experience a range of different flavours, and they may start to develop certain food preferences.

Introducing a new flavour into your diet, such as garlic for example, may mean your baby will want to feed more over the next few days to make the most of this new, exciting taste¹.

Why variety really is the spice of life
Studies have shown that exposing your baby to different flavours early on could pave the way for life-long good eating habits by making them more accepting of different foods. A varied diet makes it more likely that your baby will be receiving all their essential nutrients too.

Dishing up a variety of flavours may help your baby become a more confident eater now and later in life².

So whether you are still breast feeding or embarking on the weaning adventure, there is no better reason to cook up a storm for you and your baby. You will be honing your baby's taste buds and keeping them healthy, too.

¹ Andrea Maier, Claire Chabanet, Benoist Schaal, Peter Leatherwood, Sylvie Issanchou. Food-related sensory experience from birth through weaning: Contrasted patterns in two nearby European regions. Appetite (2007) 49 429-440.

² Julie A. Mennella, Sophie Nicklaus, Amanda L. Jagolino, Lauren M. Yourshaw. Variety is the spice of life: Strategies for promoting fruit and vegetable acceptance during infancy. Physiology & Behavior (2008) 94:29-38.