On our bookshelf

June 26, 2008 | Print

The New Breastfeeding Diet Plan by Robert Rountree and Melissa Block

Highlights: In The New Breastfeeding Diet Plan, Robert Rountree (co-author of our favorite Smart Medicine for a Healthier Child) and Melissa Block compile an extensive amount of information about breast milk, with some helpful details about infant formulas and starting solids as well.

They outline how our bodies’ function and what babies receive from breast milk, the good stuff and the toxins. Rountree and Block explain how to reduce the toxins and provide simple recipes and ideas for vitamin and mineral supplements that help make breast milk pure and healthy.

The book includes valuable information about formula–what’s in formula, how to choose organic formulas and find the best one for a particular child, and details about allergies to formulas. While they advocate breastfeeding, the tone is not judgmental.

Lowlights: The amount of vitamins recommended can be overwhelming. We could spend all day taking vitamins and teas to make super healthy breast milk. We also might freak out about the level of toxins in our bodies and what can pass onto babies.

Why we like it: The most comprehensive book about breast milk and how to enhance babies’ health through breast milk. And we haven’t seen this kind of formula information anywhere else. We go slowly, implementing some of the recommendations into our breastfeeding diet as we go along, appreciating that each step supports our babies’ health.

Child’s age: Newborn through starting solids and end of breastfeeding.

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