Several months back, a friend sent me a почта on Instagram with a title slide that read, “The 300-500 extra calories recommendation is starving breastfeeding mothers.” I was immediately fascinated. I was already familiar with the common recommendation that breastfeeding mothers need 500 additional calories per day compared to prepregnancy intake.
Anecdotally, this current postpartum—my fifth time around—has been my most relaxed in terms of emphasizing weight loss. At present, I’m seven months postpartum, and I’ve largely eaten when I’m hungry, paying more attention to decreasing my sugar intake (not to “cutting calories”) with each passing month. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my pregnancy weight loss has been more gradual than with my older kids. At the same time, I’ve had less выпадение волос than with any of my previous postpartum experiences.
I know that historically, women’s health research has been subpar in this country, and that we have received more than our fair share of reproductive healthcare that doesn’t serve our bodies or respect our natural hormonal rhythms (looking hard at you, гормональный контрацептив!). But is it true that new mothers’ nutritional needs have been massively undersold? Are we in fact “starving” postpartum women?
What’s wrong with the 500-extra-calories-per-day recommendation?
The Instagram post, put out by the Postpartum University account, argued that new mothers’ nutritional needs were generated based on sloppy, simplistic calculations. At the time, the 500-calories-per-day recommendation was created, according to the post, “It was illegal to include women in medical research [at the time the recommendation was first made]… Instead, researchers studied men, then arbitrarily adjusted the numbers downward for ‘smaller humans’ using basic math. Then they reduced pre-pregnancy caloric needs for smaller body size, added estimated amounts for milk production, and created guidelines with zero consideration for the reality of what postpartum bodies actually need.”
The end result? A one-size-fits-no-one recommendation that fails to account for the need to replenish nutrient losses due to labor and birth, heal the dinner-plate-sized wound left behind by the placenta’s detachment, rebuild nutrient stores after nine-ish months of pregnancy, and overcome increased caloric needs due to the sleep deprivation that is part and parcel of postpartum.
The end result [of the 500 calorie recommendation]? A one-size-fits-no-one recommendation that fails to account for the need to replenish nutrient losses due to labor and birth, heal the dinner-plate-sized wound left behind by the placenta’s detachment, rebuild nutrient stores after nine-ish months of pregnancy, and overcome increased caloric needs due to the sleep deprivation that is part and parcel of postpartum.
Where did the 500-calories recommendation really come from?
While we can’t confirm the 500-calorie recommendation was really based on men, there’s some evidence for the Postpartum University post’s claims.
Согласно этому 2016 research article on pregnancy and postpartum nutritional needs, “Women who breastfeed require approximately 500 additional kcal/day beyond what is recommended for non-pregnant women. The estimate is derived from the mean volume of breast milk produced per day (mean 780 mL, range 450-1200 mL) and the energy content of milk (67 kcal/100 mL)” [1]. When considering everything else going on within a woman’s body after she has a baby, this formula does appear half-baked (pardon the pun) given its inattention to the metabolic complexities of the postpartum period.
Even a 2025 research review article on “Nutrition for Optimal Lactation” in the journal Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism repeated the 500 calorie recommendation calculated based on breastmilk production needs alone [2].
What happens when mothers don’t get the calories their postpartum bodies crave?
Мы уже знаем, что some nutrients will be present in breastmilk no matter the mother’s nutritional intake, while others will be present in proportion to what her body has to give. The Postpartum University post spelled out potential consequences of (unintentional) undereating based on following the 500 calorie guideline. “When mothers don’t get adequate calories, the body prioritizes milk production and sacrifices her recovery. Her hair falls out. Her hormones crash. Her mood destabilizes. Her energy disappears.”
Most women will be familiar with these symptoms, or at least a scaled-down version of them, as “normal” parts of postpartum; but Postpartum U insists that these are не inevitable changes. Rather, they may be the unintended consequence of failing to meet our own nutritional needs at a time when our bodies are giving, giving, giving to our babies.
Do breastfeeding mothers need 1100-1600 extra calories per day?
What might a caloric guideline that incorporates new mothers’ actual nutritional needs look like? Based on several research studies linked in the post, the Postpartum University post assigns an astounding additional 1100-1600 calories needed for the postpartum transition. Here’s how they derived that number:
- 200-400 additional calories to healing from birth
- 200-300 calories to compensate for sleep deprivation
- 100-200 calories to support the body’s stress response to all the physical and emotional transitions of motherhood
- Finally, the post points to surgical recovery research suggesting increased caloric needs of 15-20%. (Though more births are vaginal than surgical, i.e., via C-section, Postpartum University asserts that giving birth any way counts as major trauma from a tissue healing perspective.)
There you have it: it’s possible that a postpartum woman needs 1100-1600 calories above and beyond her prepregnancy needs. This is two to three times the oft-repeated 500 calorie guideline.
The Postpartum University post doesn’t specify how long a new mother’s needs might be this high, and presumably the extra calories to heal specifically from birth, as one example, would be needed only short-term. Additionally, a new mom’s caloric needs will logically decrease as her baby is introduced to solid foods and she starts to wean. Still, the (potential) chasm between what many postpartum women may be taking in compared to their фактический needs should give us pause (and perhaps a snack during the pause!).
The Postpartum University post doesn’t specify how long a new mother’s needs might be this high, and presumably the extra calories to heal specifically from birth, as one example, would be needed only short-term. Additionally, a new mom’s caloric needs will logically decrease as her baby is introduced to solid foods and she starts to wean. Still, the (potential) chasm between what many postpartum women may be taking in compared to their фактический needs should give us pause (and perhaps a snack during the pause!).
Do we have unrealistic expectations of how fast women should lose their “baby weight?”
Mothers may feel conflicted about substantially increasing their caloric intake when they still feel “so big” months after their baby has joined the outside world. With each subsequent child, I’ve been gratified to receive increasingly more relaxed cultural messaging, including on social media, around losing the baby weight. I’m not bombarded, as my own mom was, by messages about “bouncing back” after baby or advertising for “boot camps” to get back my pre-baby shape, though that content certainly still exists to some extent.
But one of the linked sources for the Postpartum University post gave me pause about whether even my own expectations could use an adjustment.
A Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations статья observed, “Postpartum loss of body weight is usually highest in the first three months, and generally greater among women who practise exclusive breastfeeding, but the extent to which the energy mobilized supports lactation depends on the gestational weight gain and the nutritional status of the mother. A review of 17 studies indicated that, on average, well-nourished women lost 0.8 kg/month, whereas undernourished mothers lost only an average of 0.1 kg/month (Butte and Hopkinson, 1998).” For reference, 0.8 kg/month translates to just 1.76 pounds lost per month (and 0.1 kg translates to 0.22 lbs). Of course, this is just one study, and an old one at that, but that number is far, far less than the amount in my own head that I expect to lose—and I’m willing to bet that’s the case for a lot of postpartum women.
Similarly, the 2025 research article on Optimal Nutrition During Lactation, referenced a modest “expected weight loss” of 0.64 kg, or 1.41 pounds, per month [2].
How can mothers know they’re getting enough calories during postpartum?
Historically, women have been told that they’re getting enough calories if their baby is gaining weight appropriately. But, as stated above, the mother’s body will prioritize her baby’s nutritional needs over her own, making the baby’s weight gain an inadequate indicator of whether she herself is getting enough calories.
Perhaps the simplest cue for postpartum nutrition consumption is to eat when you feel hungry. The second simplest cue for adequate nutrition is to prioritize nutrient-dense foods (think nuts, avocados, olive oil, seeds, animal fats) over nutritionally “empty” calories (think anything sold in your grocery store’s bakery or most of what’s in the snack aisles). There may also be value in upping your intake of warming, cooked foods and beverages (as opposed to cold and/or raw foods) as traditionally emphasized in other cultures, since they may be easier to digest and therefore require less energy from the already-depleted new mother.
Итоги
New mothers, especially in the first weeks and months of postpartum, may be taking in only a fraction of what their bodies (not just their babies!) need for optimal healing and recovery. New research is urgently needed that takes into account the whole picture of women’s early postpartum needs, and the effect that adequate nutritional intake has on their overall postpartum experience, ranging from their mood to hair loss to energy levels. In the meantime, more resources for improving postpartum nutrition can be found здесь.
