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Nutrition for the Early Years
Nutrition for the Early Years – Guilt-Free Guidance for Feeding Your Family
Nutrition for the Early Years is a pediatric nutrition podcast for parents seeking evidence-based guidance on infant feeding, toddler nutrition, and child health. Hosted by dual pediatrician + registered dietitian Dr. Liz Daniels, this show explores newborn and infant nutrition, introducing solids, baby-led weaning, complementary feeding, formula feeding, multivitamins for kids, growth and development, and picky eating solutions—all through the lens of real pediatric nutrition science.
From feeding anxiety and selective eating to questions about appetite, supplements, and healthy eating habits, this podcast helps parents build a confident, guilt-free feeding mindset. You’ll learn how to support your child’s relationship with food in ways that nourish growth, protect early childhood nutrition, and align with your values—without fear-based messaging or all-or-none thinking.
Food goes deep. It’s often not until we begin feeding our own children that we revisit our childhood nutrition experiences—comments that shaped us, arbitrary rules, pressure around healthy eating, and the quiet guilt many of us carry. Feeding kids has a way of surfacing old narratives and challenging us to rethink what child nutrition really means.
This is where the conversation begins—supporting families through toddler feeding, early childhood feeding, and raising children with a strong, positive relationship with food. Because nourishing your family isn’t about perfection. It’s about clarity, confidence, and understanding what truly matters in the early years.
You are in the right place if you are asking questions like:
-How do I get my child to eat vegetables?
-Why does my toddler suddenly refuse to eat (or only eat one thing)?
-Is my child eating enough to grow properly?
-How much protein does my child actually need?
-What are the best healthy snacks for kids?
-How much milk should my child drink, and what kind?
-How can I improve my child's immune system through food?
-How can I help my child have a healthy relationship with food?
Nutrition for the Early Years
Episode 5: Do Lactation Supplements Really Increase Breast Milk Supply?
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Dr. Liz Daniels, DO, RD, FAAP
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
If you’re pregnant, breastfeeding, pumping, or worried about your milk supply, this episode is for you.
Lactation supplements—foods, herbs, and products marketed to increase breast milk—are everywhere. From lactation cookies and brewer’s yeast to fenugreek teas and moringa capsules, parents are often told these supplements are the key to making “more milk.” But do lactation supplements actually work?
In this episode of The Lunchbox Reformation, I walk through what the science really says about common lactation supplements—and why many don’t live up to the marketing.
You’ll learn:
- Which popular lactation supplements show little to no measurable increase in milk volume
- Why perceived increases in supply don’t always match actual milk production
- Which supplements show some promise—and where the evidence is still limited
- Why frequency of milk removal matters more than any supplement
- How pumping schedules, latch quality, time, sleep, and structural support affect supply
- Why breastfeeding is not “free,” and how to advocate for the support you need
I share personal experiences from my own breastfeeding journey—highlighting the emotional, logistical, and time costs that are rarely discussed but deeply felt.
The grounded takeaway: no lactation supplement replaces frequent, effective milk expression. Supplements may be supportive, but they are never first-line treatment—and struggling with supply is not a personal failure.
This episode is for parents who want:
- science over social media claims
- calm reassurance instead of pressure
- practical, real-life feeding guidance
Enjoying the show? Follow or subscribe to The Lunchbox Reformation so you never miss an episode.
Want to keep the conversation going? Find me on Instagram @drliznewstorynutrition.
Want to learn more about me? Come visit my site!
Extra studies:
Ammar M, Russo GL, Altamimi A, Altamimi M, Sabbah M, Al-Asmar A, Di Monaco R. Moringa oleifera Supplementation as a Natural Galactagogue: A Systematic Review on Its Role in Supporting Milk Volume and Prolactin Levels. Foods. 2025 Jul 16;14(14):2487. doi: 10.3390/foods14142487. PMID: 40724308; PMCID: PMC12294722.
Foong SC, Tan ML, Foong WC, Marasco LA, Ho JJ, Ong JH. Oral galactagogues (natural therapies or drugs) for increasing breast milk production in mothers of non-hospitalised term infants. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2020 May 18;5(5):CD011505. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD011505.pub2. PMID: 32421208; PMCID: PMC7388198.
Jia L, Brough L, Weber JL. Saccharomyces cerevisiae Yeast-Based Supplement and Breast Milk Supply: A Randomised Placebo-Controlled Trial. Matern Child Nutr. 2025 Sep 11:e70112. doi: 10.1111/mcn.70112. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 40932299.
NEW COURSE! "Read the Pattern: Feeding Your Baby 0–4 Months" — because a healthy relationship with food starts earlier than most people think. Course Link!
Hey, guys, what's up? Thanks for joining me today on the Lunchbox Reformation. I'm so excited to talk to you about galactagogues today. We are going to talk about the herbal supplements and/or foods that people claim will help you produce more breast milk. And we're going to talk-- does it work? Does it not? And it's going to be kind of interesting. You might be surprised. but before we go into it, I just want to mention, if you have been listening so far and you have been enjoying this and you have not yet followed or subscribed, please go do that. So I'm going to pause it right now. Go to the end of the podcast and just follow, subscribe. Leave a reading in review, too, would really help me make sure that I am talking about things that you care about. And let me know what you want to know. we'll go into that, too. So I would love to hear from you. I hope you are ready. So buckle up. We're going to get into this.
All right, so if you are a pregnant mama, if you are currently breastfeeding concerned about your milk supply or you know somebody who is, then save this episode, share it with a friend because we are going to talk about the nitty-gritty behind some of these claims and what the research has to say. And what will actually help you with your milk supply, okay? So stick around, I hope it's a lot of fun. You can nerd out with me on some weird nutrition.
Okay. So I remember being, when I had my kids, I remember being like, you know, really worried about every little drop. And I don't know, I mean, I know there are a lot better now, but I don't know if you've ever had the experience where you thought out some frozen breast milk and the same on the plastic bag like cracks open and your milk just gone. Like oh we used to freeze these breast milk in these laying snow bags and my husband would pull them out. He stayed home with our kids, well I was in med school and so, you know, he was thawing the milk and there would be days we would lose like a whole days worth of milk because this stupid box of bags was like crappy. It was so frustrating.
Now I think a lot of women will use bottles or other things and you know, it works whatever. But I just remember being so mad and then I would go reach for these like, fenugreek or brewer's yeast or whatever concoction in their herbal store saying it was going to help me produce more breast milk because I was like, I got to make up for yesterday. Or you're like, I want to go out with my and have a good time. So I need to pump some extra milk for the baby. And you know, whatever. Like there's lots of reasons where you will feel like maybe you're not producing enough or you want to produce more than what you have. You want more supply and I totally get it, totally get it.
Okay. So I even though I knew better, right? Like it was, you know, it's like it's like when you're late night and tired and you see something on assing on TV and suddenly it ends up, you know, in your house, you know better. But you still somehow believe there's magic in it, you know, and I was so there. Okay. So one of my favorite things is actually brewer's yeast. I hear this a lot. There's lots of recipes out there for lactation cookies with brewer's yeast or, you know, they'll talk about beer or other things that have yeast in it. It really supposed to help you produce more milk. And I hear this and I really like smile and nod when I have a family in front of me. But I have some really disappointing news.
There's actually a pretty good randomised controlled trial that came out recently it and it really was pretty underwhelming. I'll put it in the show on it so if you're curious. But the idea here was that, you know, we really wanted to compare like there was, there was a good animal study a long time ago that looked at animals who were having brewer's yeast or, you know, they would increase their milk supply. And so then the hope was that maybe it would happen in humans plus there's a lot of anecdotal evidence from like people over the years saying this really worked for me. So this study looked at that and it was a huge bummer. They used brewer's yeast, which is Sacra Mycee's serovisi A, which is actually what we study in the lab. If you're like super nerd and basic science and you're doing that, I love it. Here for it.
But anyway, when we're doing it in food, it's actually like this flaked product. You can find it usually in the part of the store where there's spices and stuff. Sometimes it's in health food stores and one common brand is Bragg's. That's pretty easy to recognize and see. But there's a lot of other brands out there at the point of it. Is it this like flaky kind of yellow flake stuff that looks kind of weird? And it sort of dissolves into food tastes a little bit like cheese or parmesan almost. And so in my household growing up, we always would sprinkle it on our popcorn and we would put it in our eggs. It was something I grew up eating because my mom was super into nutrition and stuff. And so it was just like in our house. And I love it. It's also really delicious on tofu. If you happen to be vegetarian or vegan, it's really common in those communities, especially because it's actually a complete, I mean, it has complete amino profile. So although it's vegan, it's got a complete protein. One of the very few things on this planet, maybe the only one. And it's really cool. And also has a bunch of bee vitamins in there. And so the idea here is that it would help support breast supply, breast milk supply. And interestingly, in this most recent study, they show that about 65 percent of the women taking it perceived an increase in milk production compared to 35 percent of the placebo group. So these women were like, "Oh yeah, I totally know. I'm totally pumping more. This is so much better." But the reality was the actual milk volume was no different.
So I have to say, although it's in my house and I personally like it and use it, I don't think it's going to give you more milk. Okay. Sorry.
Let's move on to the next one. The next galactagogue that is often claimed as being really helpful is fenugreek. And I remember when I had my second kid, I was working in a clinic that had a really diverse population and there was a woman who was Ethiopian and she was like, 'I love fenugreek, you have to use it, here's all my recipes. She brought me teas, she brought me a little powder and she was like, 'You need to have it everywhere. You guys, I don't know this happened to you but I swear it made my sweat from my armpits smell like celery. I smelled it all the time'. And I was like, 'I can't do this, I smell so weird'. So, I didn't take. But you know, anecdotally, I thought, 'I'll give it a try'. You know, if it helped her, it's not going to hurt me, why not? And that was his deterrent.
Okay. Well, fast forward now, we a little bit of a little bit of a literature. And there was actually pretty big meta-analysis that was published in '18 and it looked at the effectiveness of fenugreek as a galactagogue. And the weighted average was that, according to these studies, it did improve things by a half an ounce. Uh, uh, uh. Sorry, guys. Not a home run.
Okay. Now, what about fennel? Fennel sounds similar to fenugreek but it's not. It's actually a root vegetable. I love it. It tastes like licorice almost. One of my kids actually, it's like one of his favorite things. The seeds in fennel are really great. They, they'll give the flavor to Italian sausage. And, then there's fronds like the little top of them. So like there's a bowl in the bottom that's white. It has green stock and these like, little frilly fronds that sometimes can look like dill or be confused for dill. and all of them have great flavor and they're a little bit different chemistry between biotype components all the way through. But they're delicious. It's great for soups. They're good at roasting. Really really good. If you haven't had fennel please go try it. It's delicious. and when they took fennel seed tea, I mean, maybe a little bit more. But this one is a study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 25 that looked at, know, supply in moms who had preterm babies. And then this particular study, they, they had an average difference of about 98 milliliters, which is reasonable. That's three ounces, by day seven. So this was given, you know, two moms early in their production. Ah, when you look that at, like when you look larger studies, more collectively, all of them are going to be small individual studies anyway. So they're going to vary pretty widely in their systematic design. But Cochran's Review on this was really underwhelming. So not much.
Okay. So I'm just going to tell you milk thistle. I wouldn't waste your time or money. Sorry. Milk thistle actually has a lot of properties that it's claimed to be really beneficial for. And I, you know, it's certainly safe to do. And there was a couple studies that showed large differences, like 100 milliliters even by day seven, but similar kind of thing when you look at multiple studies together and compare their study design, it really washes out and not not super helpful.
Interestingly, I have two more that may actually be worth your time. One is dates. And it, in compared to fenugreek actually was more beneficial than fenugreek. Dates are delicious. Awesome. I love them. I eat them all the time. My personal favorite their medial dates, but you'd have to eat a lot of dates in order to get some benefit from here. And that's good. But mmm. So if you happen to be taking some food over to a friend or to who's have a baby, and you want to make a dessert with dates and I'm by all means do that because it's delicious. It may not make a ton more milk.
Now, the last one is actually really interesting, and I would say this is one to watch. It's moringa and moringa is a leaf and it is either found as a a leaf powder that you can add to things or it can be in capsule form. And there some interesting studies on this and it actually does look like it maybe produces substantially more, for women. So it's one to consider. About 400 millimeters a day, which is a lot, by increasing prolactin levels in a recent 2025 systematic review. Now, I would tell you that was not one I personally ever tried because I just wasn't available to me, nor was it like something that people were talking about. But it's pretty much been around for a long time in the, in the far east. And so I think especially in India. And so I think there's a lot of value with thinking about that, but you know, it's, it's one that is like, mm, okay, maybe. Okay. So now that I made it like, bummed you out with my disappointing evidence. or lack of evidence to support some of those products on the market.
I want to tell you what really will increase your milk supply. Are you ready for it? It might not surprise you, but it's actually breastfeeding your baby. It's frequency of expressions. Okay, hear me out. We know that about 8 to 12 times a day, the breasts need to be expressed, either from pumping or by direct latch. And the key here is a good latch makes all the difference.
Okay, Mama. So what I'm saying is if you are pumping or breastfeeding in a total day five times and you're disappointed that your milk supply is low, I really hate to break it to you, but reaching for merina is not the answer. It really is augment your frequency. That's what's going to get milk supply up. I used to call this a Netflix and nurse session where, you know, if you're feeling like you're low and you don't have enough milk, then block out the weekend, change everything in your schedule to just sit around and nurse that baby every time they need to nurse.
Or if your baby doesn't latch well and you've transitioned over to pumping, which a lot of Mama's do, then just pump every two hours during the day, make it to that 12 pump time. It's not time on the pump. A lot of moms get confused. It's not it's not like, you know, I want the baby to be on the breast for an hour. And that's a really great feeding session. No, no, no, 10 to 20 minutes max, and then take the baby off. Get a break. Take a rest. Take a nap. And then come back two hours later. That's going to be more beneficial to have a cumulative 20, 20 minutes or 40 minutes combined for those two feedings than being on the breast for a full hour. I hope that makes sense.
But it's frequency of expressions that are going to stimulate prolactin for the moms brain to then tell the mammary gland to produce more milk. And that cycle is what's really, really important. So the take home here is not that you shouldn't use these products. It's that none of them are going to be first line. And they're really not the way to augment your supply. It comes down to frequency of expression.
So this may seem a little unfair. And I think it's it's discouraging because at the end of the day, that's time. And what is the one thing that most mom is really struggling with? It's time. And and I just want to shift gears a little bit and think the systems in place that are going to help you with breast milk. And so I will say breastfeeding is not free. It's not free. It is your time. It is your energy. I know when I breastfeeding, it was really hard. I didn't have a place to go. And it wasn't just that I was gonna like I couldn't just like, I was in classes that I had to physically be present for. And so I was pumping every three hours. I would excuse myself to go pump. But I didn't have like a pumping room or a location, you know? And so I would like sometimes have to walk out of my school into the car garage, into my car, use the battery charger. And because I was using the battery charger to pump, it would take like 30 minutes sometimes to pump when I could have just used 10 minutes if I had an outlet. But I didn't have a station. I didn't have a designated place to go. And so if you are currently pregnant and you're wanting to breastfeed and you're planning to think about reaching out to your team before going back to work and finding and securing a place to pump that has everything you need, nowadays a lot of employers really have to do that. And so that's much more accessible than it was.
But it may still take a little bit of advocacy on your part to do. And I think it's well worth it. Now, you may be the first one to champion that. And in my situation, I didn't have a lot of enough voice nor did I care to like do that. I just was so drained. I was like, I just didn't even have the energy. But it may be that if you're the first and your workplace to advocate for pumping space, then kudos to you because you're setting the foundation for another woman who can be successful. I would just tell you that it's, it's your time. Okay. So like in my situation, I had to carve out that time and say this really matters to me. And I set, I had a recording device and I would hit record in the classroom. And when I would walk away so that I could go back and listen to it later. And it was super. It ended up taking a lot of extra time to stay ahead in class. Things are a little different now and I think med school has changed a lot. I hope it has.
But, you know, There are a lot of structural things in the day that make it really difficult. If you're at home and you have multiple children and it's really hard for you to breastfeed in a quiet room or to pump in a space, think about a wearable. Think about using your FSA or HSA money to get a wearable, or to get something that can go with you so that you can address the barriers to give you that time freedom back.
But you know what the biggest issue was for me? I'm going to be real honest. I didn't want to be tethered. I didn't want to. Like I love to move. I love being busy and being occupied. I love engaging with people and I wanted to be out and about and going to pump. It felt like a punishment. It was like I had to go and time out. And you know, you may be not alone in that area. I just want to say that if you are really wanting to make breastfeeding your goal and your milk supply is struggling, focus first on getting those eight to 12 sessions and get your supply up. If you need a junk to support, you can consider the galactagogues, but talk to your OB. There are medications out there. I'm not going to go into that today. That's not my scope. But think about some of those other issues.
If you are early on and you're struggling with your latch, find the support of an amazing lactation consultant to help you because you need that. Your baby needs that and it's okay to ask for help. If you don't have to have this figured out, you could have had 12 children and still have the 13th child have difficulty with latching and get help just because you may have done it before or somebody around you has done it or you may be even a lactation consultant yourself. It doesn't mean that breastfeeding is going to be easy or that that latch is going to be easy. And it is okay to get support once, twice, 20 from a lactation consultant. That's okay. This is a part of your journey.
And if it's really important to you and you really want to do this, then you know, don't feel like you are a burden or that you are taking up too much time or resources from somebody else. It's an investment and it's not free. It doesn't have to be. you can get the advocacy. And I want to encourage you to get the support that you need, whether that is asking for your time back in another way, or carving out the supports well before you walk into the workplace so that that transition is easier for you to continue your frequency of pumping or frequency of breastfeeding that is going to help support your goal.
Okay. One other thought here. And that is sleep. Now, I have heard a lot of moms who are like, I just can't sleep in the baby's sleeps. And I hear you, I was so there because I like couldn't handle my house being messy or other things happening. And so this is where you can kind of think again about your time freedom. And if your goal is to pump and you're in the early it may be Instead of asking for meals from people, maybe you ask for, you know, somebody to come clean the house for you or maybe you ask for, you know, instead of baby gifts that you maybe don't need 25,000 swattle blankets, I mean, they're cool. But like, maybe what you need is somebody take care of some of their tasks for in the Like, you know, because I think one of the traps that a lot of them fall into is like, well, I'm going to be on maternity leave, so I'm going to have lunch time. And then you don't.
So if there's things in the house that you're like trying to mentally do just I want to give you a PSA that you have permission to not have to do all of those things. you have permission to take the time you need because breastfeeding is not free. It is a privilege and is choice. And it isn't always what everybody needs to do. It's okay if you don't, you're not a failure as a mom if you're not breastfeeding. But if you're struggling and you're needing to get more time to get there, take the time you need. There's no race.
Okay, mommas, If this episode resonated with you and helped ground you in your breastfeeding journey, I'm so glad. I would love to invite you to a breastfeeding masterclass that I'm going to be doing in January. We're going to be diving deeper into the science of breast milk. We're going to compare both breast milk and formulas. We're going to talk deeply about colostrum versus mature milk and amino acids and all these cool, fun things that are deep dyes into it all. If that would be helpful for you, please come and join us. The registration will be in the show and if you know another amazing mama out there who's navigating feeding decisions and wants to nourish the whole child from the insight out, please share this episode with one of your friends. This helps support her and help support us reach more mamas out there who are just like you and want to do everything with the best evidence-based support with calm and clarity.
And that is it guys. Thanks so much for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate it. And I hope this resonated with you. If, however, this brought up some questions or you're looking for a little more clarity around how to feed your child specifically, you don't have to do it all you want to learn more about how to work with me or ways I can help you, hop on over to newsstoryneutrition.com and send me an email. Let me know. I'd love to hear from you and I'd love to know how I can help you if you want to go deeper in your own kids' nutrition or you need support.
Until next time, take care of yourself and remember nourishing your kids starts with supporting you first. hope you guys have a fantastic week. See you back on the next episode.
All right, so if you are a pregnant mama, if you are currently breastfeeding concerned about your milk supply or you know somebody who is, then save this episode, share it with a friend because we are going to talk about the nitty-gritty behind some of these claims and what the research has to say. And what will actually help you with your milk supply, okay? So stick around, I hope it's a lot of fun. You can nerd out with me on some weird nutrition.
Okay. So I remember being, when I had my kids, I remember being like, you know, really worried about every little drop. And I don't know, I mean, I know there are a lot better now, but I don't know if you've ever had the experience where you thought out some frozen breast milk and the same on the plastic bag like cracks open and your milk just gone. Like oh we used to freeze these breast milk in these laying snow bags and my husband would pull them out. He stayed home with our kids, well I was in med school and so, you know, he was thawing the milk and there would be days we would lose like a whole days worth of milk because this stupid box of bags was like crappy. It was so frustrating.
Now I think a lot of women will use bottles or other things and you know, it works whatever. But I just remember being so mad and then I would go reach for these like, fenugreek or brewer's yeast or whatever concoction in their herbal store saying it was going to help me produce more breast milk because I was like, I got to make up for yesterday. Or you're like, I want to go out with my and have a good time. So I need to pump some extra milk for the baby. And you know, whatever. Like there's lots of reasons where you will feel like maybe you're not producing enough or you want to produce more than what you have. You want more supply and I totally get it, totally get it.
Okay. So I even though I knew better, right? Like it was, you know, it's like it's like when you're late night and tired and you see something on assing on TV and suddenly it ends up, you know, in your house, you know better. But you still somehow believe there's magic in it, you know, and I was so there. Okay. So one of my favorite things is actually brewer's yeast. I hear this a lot. There's lots of recipes out there for lactation cookies with brewer's yeast or, you know, they'll talk about beer or other things that have yeast in it. It really supposed to help you produce more milk. And I hear this and I really like smile and nod when I have a family in front of me. But I have some really disappointing news.
There's actually a pretty good randomised controlled trial that came out recently it and it really was pretty underwhelming. I'll put it in the show on it so if you're curious. But the idea here was that, you know, we really wanted to compare like there was, there was a good animal study a long time ago that looked at animals who were having brewer's yeast or, you know, they would increase their milk supply. And so then the hope was that maybe it would happen in humans plus there's a lot of anecdotal evidence from like people over the years saying this really worked for me. So this study looked at that and it was a huge bummer. They used brewer's yeast, which is Sacra Mycee's serovisi A, which is actually what we study in the lab. If you're like super nerd and basic science and you're doing that, I love it. Here for it.
But anyway, when we're doing it in food, it's actually like this flaked product. You can find it usually in the part of the store where there's spices and stuff. Sometimes it's in health food stores and one common brand is Bragg's. That's pretty easy to recognize and see. But there's a lot of other brands out there at the point of it. Is it this like flaky kind of yellow flake stuff that looks kind of weird? And it sort of dissolves into food tastes a little bit like cheese or parmesan almost. And so in my household growing up, we always would sprinkle it on our popcorn and we would put it in our eggs. It was something I grew up eating because my mom was super into nutrition and stuff. And so it was just like in our house. And I love it. It's also really delicious on tofu. If you happen to be vegetarian or vegan, it's really common in those communities, especially because it's actually a complete, I mean, it has complete amino profile. So although it's vegan, it's got a complete protein. One of the very few things on this planet, maybe the only one. And it's really cool. And also has a bunch of bee vitamins in there. And so the idea here is that it would help support breast supply, breast milk supply. And interestingly, in this most recent study, they show that about 65 percent of the women taking it perceived an increase in milk production compared to 35 percent of the placebo group. So these women were like, "Oh yeah, I totally know. I'm totally pumping more. This is so much better." But the reality was the actual milk volume was no different.
So I have to say, although it's in my house and I personally like it and use it, I don't think it's going to give you more milk. Okay. Sorry.
Let's move on to the next one. The next galactagogue that is often claimed as being really helpful is fenugreek. And I remember when I had my second kid, I was working in a clinic that had a really diverse population and there was a woman who was Ethiopian and she was like, 'I love fenugreek, you have to use it, here's all my recipes. She brought me teas, she brought me a little powder and she was like, 'You need to have it everywhere. You guys, I don't know this happened to you but I swear it made my sweat from my armpits smell like celery. I smelled it all the time'. And I was like, 'I can't do this, I smell so weird'. So, I didn't take. But you know, anecdotally, I thought, 'I'll give it a try'. You know, if it helped her, it's not going to hurt me, why not? And that was his deterrent.
Okay. Well, fast forward now, we a little bit of a little bit of a literature. And there was actually pretty big meta-analysis that was published in '18 and it looked at the effectiveness of fenugreek as a galactagogue. And the weighted average was that, according to these studies, it did improve things by a half an ounce. Uh, uh, uh. Sorry, guys. Not a home run.
Okay. Now, what about fennel? Fennel sounds similar to fenugreek but it's not. It's actually a root vegetable. I love it. It tastes like licorice almost. One of my kids actually, it's like one of his favorite things. The seeds in fennel are really great. They, they'll give the flavor to Italian sausage. And, then there's fronds like the little top of them. So like there's a bowl in the bottom that's white. It has green stock and these like, little frilly fronds that sometimes can look like dill or be confused for dill. and all of them have great flavor and they're a little bit different chemistry between biotype components all the way through. But they're delicious. It's great for soups. They're good at roasting. Really really good. If you haven't had fennel please go try it. It's delicious. and when they took fennel seed tea, I mean, maybe a little bit more. But this one is a study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 25 that looked at, know, supply in moms who had preterm babies. And then this particular study, they, they had an average difference of about 98 milliliters, which is reasonable. That's three ounces, by day seven. So this was given, you know, two moms early in their production. Ah, when you look that at, like when you look larger studies, more collectively, all of them are going to be small individual studies anyway. So they're going to vary pretty widely in their systematic design. But Cochran's Review on this was really underwhelming. So not much.
Okay. So I'm just going to tell you milk thistle. I wouldn't waste your time or money. Sorry. Milk thistle actually has a lot of properties that it's claimed to be really beneficial for. And I, you know, it's certainly safe to do. And there was a couple studies that showed large differences, like 100 milliliters even by day seven, but similar kind of thing when you look at multiple studies together and compare their study design, it really washes out and not not super helpful.
Interestingly, I have two more that may actually be worth your time. One is dates. And it, in compared to fenugreek actually was more beneficial than fenugreek. Dates are delicious. Awesome. I love them. I eat them all the time. My personal favorite their medial dates, but you'd have to eat a lot of dates in order to get some benefit from here. And that's good. But mmm. So if you happen to be taking some food over to a friend or to who's have a baby, and you want to make a dessert with dates and I'm by all means do that because it's delicious. It may not make a ton more milk.
Now, the last one is actually really interesting, and I would say this is one to watch. It's moringa and moringa is a leaf and it is either found as a a leaf powder that you can add to things or it can be in capsule form. And there some interesting studies on this and it actually does look like it maybe produces substantially more, for women. So it's one to consider. About 400 millimeters a day, which is a lot, by increasing prolactin levels in a recent 2025 systematic review. Now, I would tell you that was not one I personally ever tried because I just wasn't available to me, nor was it like something that people were talking about. But it's pretty much been around for a long time in the, in the far east. And so I think especially in India. And so I think there's a lot of value with thinking about that, but you know, it's, it's one that is like, mm, okay, maybe. Okay. So now that I made it like, bummed you out with my disappointing evidence. or lack of evidence to support some of those products on the market.
I want to tell you what really will increase your milk supply. Are you ready for it? It might not surprise you, but it's actually breastfeeding your baby. It's frequency of expressions. Okay, hear me out. We know that about 8 to 12 times a day, the breasts need to be expressed, either from pumping or by direct latch. And the key here is a good latch makes all the difference.
Okay, Mama. So what I'm saying is if you are pumping or breastfeeding in a total day five times and you're disappointed that your milk supply is low, I really hate to break it to you, but reaching for merina is not the answer. It really is augment your frequency. That's what's going to get milk supply up. I used to call this a Netflix and nurse session where, you know, if you're feeling like you're low and you don't have enough milk, then block out the weekend, change everything in your schedule to just sit around and nurse that baby every time they need to nurse.
Or if your baby doesn't latch well and you've transitioned over to pumping, which a lot of Mama's do, then just pump every two hours during the day, make it to that 12 pump time. It's not time on the pump. A lot of moms get confused. It's not it's not like, you know, I want the baby to be on the breast for an hour. And that's a really great feeding session. No, no, no, 10 to 20 minutes max, and then take the baby off. Get a break. Take a rest. Take a nap. And then come back two hours later. That's going to be more beneficial to have a cumulative 20, 20 minutes or 40 minutes combined for those two feedings than being on the breast for a full hour. I hope that makes sense.
But it's frequency of expressions that are going to stimulate prolactin for the moms brain to then tell the mammary gland to produce more milk. And that cycle is what's really, really important. So the take home here is not that you shouldn't use these products. It's that none of them are going to be first line. And they're really not the way to augment your supply. It comes down to frequency of expression.
So this may seem a little unfair. And I think it's it's discouraging because at the end of the day, that's time. And what is the one thing that most mom is really struggling with? It's time. And and I just want to shift gears a little bit and think the systems in place that are going to help you with breast milk. And so I will say breastfeeding is not free. It's not free. It is your time. It is your energy. I know when I breastfeeding, it was really hard. I didn't have a place to go. And it wasn't just that I was gonna like I couldn't just like, I was in classes that I had to physically be present for. And so I was pumping every three hours. I would excuse myself to go pump. But I didn't have like a pumping room or a location, you know? And so I would like sometimes have to walk out of my school into the car garage, into my car, use the battery charger. And because I was using the battery charger to pump, it would take like 30 minutes sometimes to pump when I could have just used 10 minutes if I had an outlet. But I didn't have a station. I didn't have a designated place to go. And so if you are currently pregnant and you're wanting to breastfeed and you're planning to think about reaching out to your team before going back to work and finding and securing a place to pump that has everything you need, nowadays a lot of employers really have to do that. And so that's much more accessible than it was.
But it may still take a little bit of advocacy on your part to do. And I think it's well worth it. Now, you may be the first one to champion that. And in my situation, I didn't have a lot of enough voice nor did I care to like do that. I just was so drained. I was like, I just didn't even have the energy. But it may be that if you're the first and your workplace to advocate for pumping space, then kudos to you because you're setting the foundation for another woman who can be successful. I would just tell you that it's, it's your time. Okay. So like in my situation, I had to carve out that time and say this really matters to me. And I set, I had a recording device and I would hit record in the classroom. And when I would walk away so that I could go back and listen to it later. And it was super. It ended up taking a lot of extra time to stay ahead in class. Things are a little different now and I think med school has changed a lot. I hope it has.
But, you know, There are a lot of structural things in the day that make it really difficult. If you're at home and you have multiple children and it's really hard for you to breastfeed in a quiet room or to pump in a space, think about a wearable. Think about using your FSA or HSA money to get a wearable, or to get something that can go with you so that you can address the barriers to give you that time freedom back.
But you know what the biggest issue was for me? I'm going to be real honest. I didn't want to be tethered. I didn't want to. Like I love to move. I love being busy and being occupied. I love engaging with people and I wanted to be out and about and going to pump. It felt like a punishment. It was like I had to go and time out. And you know, you may be not alone in that area. I just want to say that if you are really wanting to make breastfeeding your goal and your milk supply is struggling, focus first on getting those eight to 12 sessions and get your supply up. If you need a junk to support, you can consider the galactagogues, but talk to your OB. There are medications out there. I'm not going to go into that today. That's not my scope. But think about some of those other issues.
If you are early on and you're struggling with your latch, find the support of an amazing lactation consultant to help you because you need that. Your baby needs that and it's okay to ask for help. If you don't have to have this figured out, you could have had 12 children and still have the 13th child have difficulty with latching and get help just because you may have done it before or somebody around you has done it or you may be even a lactation consultant yourself. It doesn't mean that breastfeeding is going to be easy or that that latch is going to be easy. And it is okay to get support once, twice, 20 from a lactation consultant. That's okay. This is a part of your journey.
And if it's really important to you and you really want to do this, then you know, don't feel like you are a burden or that you are taking up too much time or resources from somebody else. It's an investment and it's not free. It doesn't have to be. you can get the advocacy. And I want to encourage you to get the support that you need, whether that is asking for your time back in another way, or carving out the supports well before you walk into the workplace so that that transition is easier for you to continue your frequency of pumping or frequency of breastfeeding that is going to help support your goal.
Okay. One other thought here. And that is sleep. Now, I have heard a lot of moms who are like, I just can't sleep in the baby's sleeps. And I hear you, I was so there because I like couldn't handle my house being messy or other things happening. And so this is where you can kind of think again about your time freedom. And if your goal is to pump and you're in the early it may be Instead of asking for meals from people, maybe you ask for, you know, somebody to come clean the house for you or maybe you ask for, you know, instead of baby gifts that you maybe don't need 25,000 swattle blankets, I mean, they're cool. But like, maybe what you need is somebody take care of some of their tasks for in the Like, you know, because I think one of the traps that a lot of them fall into is like, well, I'm going to be on maternity leave, so I'm going to have lunch time. And then you don't.
So if there's things in the house that you're like trying to mentally do just I want to give you a PSA that you have permission to not have to do all of those things. you have permission to take the time you need because breastfeeding is not free. It is a privilege and is choice. And it isn't always what everybody needs to do. It's okay if you don't, you're not a failure as a mom if you're not breastfeeding. But if you're struggling and you're needing to get more time to get there, take the time you need. There's no race.
Okay, mommas, If this episode resonated with you and helped ground you in your breastfeeding journey, I'm so glad. I would love to invite you to a breastfeeding masterclass that I'm going to be doing in January. We're going to be diving deeper into the science of breast milk. We're going to compare both breast milk and formulas. We're going to talk deeply about colostrum versus mature milk and amino acids and all these cool, fun things that are deep dyes into it all. If that would be helpful for you, please come and join us. The registration will be in the show and if you know another amazing mama out there who's navigating feeding decisions and wants to nourish the whole child from the insight out, please share this episode with one of your friends. This helps support her and help support us reach more mamas out there who are just like you and want to do everything with the best evidence-based support with calm and clarity.
And that is it guys. Thanks so much for listening all the way to the end. I really appreciate it. And I hope this resonated with you. If, however, this brought up some questions or you're looking for a little more clarity around how to feed your child specifically, you don't have to do it all you want to learn more about how to work with me or ways I can help you, hop on over to newsstoryneutrition.com and send me an email. Let me know. I'd love to hear from you and I'd love to know how I can help you if you want to go deeper in your own kids' nutrition or you need support.
Until next time, take care of yourself and remember nourishing your kids starts with supporting you first. hope you guys have a fantastic week. See you back on the next episode.