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My name is Christine Marquette and I'm a registered dietitian with the Austin Regional Clinic
and I'm going to talk to you about doing the Atkins diet while breastfeeding. Phase one
of the Atkins diet can put your body into a state of ketosis. There hasn't been a lot
of research done on breastfeeding women who are in this particular state. The only research
that has been done has been in uncontrolled diabetics who are actually in ketoacidosis
which is a little bit different. Some of the same things can happen as far as your body
forming ketones but again because it is in diabetics it's different than in somebody
who does not have diabetes and still reaches that point of ketosis. Even though technically
breastmilk does contain some ketones in it, it's not known how a woman in that state,
how that would actually affect her breast milk, if it would increase the level of ketones,
if it would change the quality of it, and again, because this is affecting human infants,
it wouldn't be ethical to actually form a study and actually put people through to see
what would happen to the infants. So because we don't really know what can happen it is
definitely not advised to do the Atkins diet particularly the phase one diet, if you're
going to be breastfeeding. In addition, you need more energy when you are breastfeeding,
so it's not advisable to do any type of weight loss diet at least in the first two months.
Typically after the first two months milk stores have been formed there actually working
properly at that point. A healthy eating plan, maybe trying to lose half a pound to a pound
a week, could be done by someone who is overweight but again, typically for most women, weight
loss diets are not advised while they are breastfeeding. So in particular avoid the
Atkins diet especially phase one while you are breastfeeding.