The New Breastfeeding Diet Plan By Robert Roundtree M.D. and Melissa Block M. Ed.

The title of this book is a bit misleading. It is not really about “dieting” or losing weight while breastfeeding. It is more about a way to eat while breastfeeding that minimizes toxin exposure while introducing the most amount of nutrients. Honestly, I liked this book much more than I originally thought I would. I wasn’t sure quite what to expect from this book.

The thing that really attracted me to this book was that it is about toxins in breastmilk. This is an area of great interest to me, so I found this book quite interesting. The book outlines ways to minimize the amount of toxins going into the breastmilk by encouraging the body to eliminate toxins in other ways. The book discusses proper nutrition in great lengths.

I do feel this book left some unanswered questions for me. I do feel as though I would need to verify some of the information mentioned with various sources. For example, the author seems particularly against vegan diets. The author doesn’t even seem too fond of vegetarian diets in general. Since I am a bit of a fan for both and my thinking tends to lie more in favor for vegetarian and vegan diets, it is not possible for me to simply swallow this information. It’s interesting though that vegetarian diets have less toxins in general, though the author states this is not a practical way of reducing toxins. I disagree.

The first few chapters of this book are rather dry reading. There’s a lot about proper vitamins, minerals, fats. It’s all important, but not the most interesting reading for everyone. Lots of facts and numbers; rather technical. Keep reading though because it does pick up.

I very much like that this book stresses the importance of breastfeeding. Of course, we know it is, but it doesn’t hurt to hear it.

An interesting fact I learned from this book was that breastmilk loses its vitamin C count the longer it is frozen. This is very interesting to me as I had not previously known that. Also, I know a lot of babies get frozen milk, so this is potentially something to pay attention to.

The book recommends not delaying solids past six months for a risk of iron deficiency. They recommend starting a little sooner if baby is interested. This advice is not consistent with other sources, therefore I would recommend studying this a little more in depth before deciding either way. There are sources that tend to say delay solids as long as possible. I am more apt to believe this advice because I believe there can be a lot more problems from starting solids too early than the risk of iron deficiency. If the mother is eating the proper foods, her milk should be just fine.

The author seems to have a good understanding of toxins and chemicals. I enjoyed reading this information. The author talks about the precautionary principle, which is basically to assume something is not safe until it is proven so. First do no harm. Though this is not at all the way our society operates. The author claims to get dangerous chemicals removed from products happens at a snail’s pace. This is so true and ridiculous. This book gives inspiration to do something about this. If there is components of rocket fuel showing up in women’s braastmilk, then we have a major problem.

An excellent point made in this book however, is not to let the toxins found in breastmilk dissuade you from breastfeeding. This is very important advice. It is easy to think maybe formula is better, but this is not true in the slightest.

A great quote.

“With so many chemicals commonly produced and used, it’s an impossible task to thoroughly test them all. It’s even more impossible to imagine testing all the potential effects of every combination of those chemicals on living things. But there is strong evidence that these chemicals have played a role in the rise of chronic diseases over the past fifty years- the period during which most of these chemicals were created and entered into widespread use.”

The author also makes the wonderful point about medications and how they are also toxins. I love this! Too few people think of them this way, but that’s what they are- toxins! Toxins cannot produce good health. This book is written by a medical doctor by the way. Nice.

The author discusses the controversy on soy. Good thing to mention if you’re writing about nutrition. Though the discussion leaves out information the difference between fermented and unfermented soy and GMO concerns with soy.

There are quite a lot of good tips in this book for just living in general. One such advice is to fill one psray bottle of hydrogen peroxide and one of vinegar and spray them on the same surface to clean. Cleans like bleach, but you don’t have to use bleach. Bleach is toxic by the way and really shouldn’t ever be used.

There’s actually a lot of information about formula in this book though it is a breastfeeding book. I suppose it’s in there for people that cannot breastfeed, though a lot of time is spent talking about formula. It is educational. I’m not sure I would take every recommendation to hear, but many of them are good.

Bottle feeding is discussed and there is information on choosing a nipple. I just wanted to add a little to it. Nipple manufacturers have extremely poor quality control standards. If you are breastfeeding, baby will always need a slow flow nipple. Each nipple must be tested though. Test with water, but if the water just flies out when the bottle is tipped, it is not a slow flow nipple. Buy a few packages and throw out the ones that don’t make the cut. Nipples also wear out, so check regularly.

There is plenty more good information found in this book. I think it is worthwhile to read. While, the book does leave me with some unanswered questions, I suppose now I have some more research to do.