Garlic & Breastfeeding Moms

I heard that garlic can make them worse.. My son has the same problems and is breastfed... I have started taking probiotics and digestive enzymes to help balance things in my system that might be upsetting his. I have also cut out dairy cause that might be aggrivating him. He could have a sensitivity to something such as dairy, soy, wheat etc. and he's getting it through the breast milk. Also gas drops such as Mylicon and Gripe water can be helpful, they may not get rid of the gas but may help with the discomfort. Hope this was helpful...

Garlic is one of the things that you're supposed to stay away from when BFing . Strong flavors like that come through the milk. For the reflux sit her up for about 10 minutes after she eats. and for the gas you can use the mylacon drops or sit her on her back, bend her knees, and push them gently into her tummykind of rotating her hips and her butt. Also laying across you legs and pat her butt for a little while.

Hi B.,

Garlic is a really good food and does a lot of wonderful things but the help in breastfeeding is not meant to be long term or maintenance. Garlic will give you a boost in milk supply but only occasionally so taking it all the time wouldn't really help. As far as helping with gas or reflux I wouldn't think it would do anything. Some experts don't recommend garlic during breastfeeding because there isn't enough information on it.

You need to be on a probiotic/prebiotic for YOUR digestion. The best way to avoid reflux to begin with is for you to get total nutrition that absorbs. That means your digestion has to work right. I know a good absorbable multivitamin and mineral complex if you're interested. Most vitamins that have minerals create free radical activity so you really need to know what you are taking. Most do more damage than good.

If your little one is old enough she can use a probiotic as well. Sorry I couldn't give you any more info.

Like some others... garlic is great!! I would do this and try and limit dairy in your diet. Both of these should help with the reflux. Someone said about staying away from garlic?? My baby loves it when I take garlic and if I am getting sick or I think he might be I take and swallow a whole garlic clove 2 times a day. This is natures antibiotic! Go for it!

For the reflux you might also want to try Gripe water

Hi B.,
I had a pediatric gastro. tell me to avoid garlic, onion, tomato and dairy since my daughter had reflux. Crazy I know! I did it for a week and then slowly started adding back things one at a time to see what was causing the issue. It seemed like tomato was the culprit, same with my #2 daughter. Every baby is different though, garlic may be worth a try if you're up for it :-)

As a fellow nursing mom. staying away from cow's milk is very helpful for the baby...even a teaspoon can create problems with baby.

I would try the probiotics before garlic. For the reflux, take your little one to a chiropractor! It will help tremendously with this! Good luck!

I found it to be gassy for my baby

i have always heard garlic is a culprit

we have had to deal with reflux in 4 of my 5 kids, 2 of them took zantac so didnt want to have to do that again so tried probiotics for this one after much research online and it is much easier and works really well so far but like meds took a couple days to build up