Does breastfeeding really help you burn calories and lose weight?

Breastfeeding not only has a plethora of benefits for the baby but it has amazing benefits for the mother too. One of the celebrated perks of breastfeeding is the calorie burn it entails. Breastfeeding can help you burn up to 300 to 500 calories in a day. Are you wondering how? Let us break it down for you.

You need to spend a lot of energy when you are breastfeeding. Since you are passing off the calories to your child, you are not storing as many calories for yourself unless you supplement that with extra food intake. So, you end up losing a lot of calories. Part of the reasoning also lies behind the actual breast milk. Breast milk is a mix of necessary vitamins and immunity boosters and since your body isn’t normally creating this blend, it has to work extra hard to produce enough milk to meet the demand. Plus, breastfeeding also releases the hormone oxytocin which helps your uterus return to the pre-pregnancy size. So, if you gained extra weight during pregnancy, breastfeeding may help you get back to your pre-pregnancy shape.

The extra calorie burn usually translates into a noticeable weight loss when combined with a healthy lifestyle. According to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, new moms who breastfed lost twice the weight in the first year after delivery as compared to the mothers who did not breastfeed. [1] Another study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that pregnancy weight gain can be essentially reversed after six months of exclusive breastfeeding [2].

References:
[1] Dewey KG, Heinig MJ, Nommsen LA. Maternal weight-loss patterns during prolonged lactation. Am J Clin Nutr. 1993 Aug;58(2):162-6. PubMed PMID: 8338042.

[2] Jennifer L Baker Michael Gamborg Berit L Heitmann Lauren Lissner Thorkild IA Sørensen Kathleen M Rasmussen, Breastfeeding reduces postpartum weight retention, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 88, Issue 6, 1 December 2008, Pages 1543–1551, https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2008.26379