Dietary Pattern of Lactating Women in an Urban Community

Abstract

It is well known that maintenance of health is greatly dependent on adequate nutrition. Breast feeding imposes a greater strain than pregnancy on the mother, because the woman nourishes a "fully developed" and rapidly growing baby whose food needs increase day by day. If the mother's diet is satisfactory during pregnancy she will have accumulated a store of nutrients. In readiness for satisfactory breast feeding. If the mother is known to have gone through pregnancy successfully on a faulty and insufficient diet, it means she has freely drawn upon her own tissues to build her baby and she will continue to do so as she nurses her child. Though lactation performance may be sufficient at the cost of health of lactatlng women, but there is a limit even for the continuous withdrawal of nutrients from maternal body and this may result in deterioration of the quality and reduction in quantity of milk.