Like in pregnancy, adequate nutrition of the mother during lactation is of vital importance since during the first few months of life, the infant derives all the nutrition from the mother’s milk. The child does not need anything over breast milk for the initial six months. Generally, the child is breastfed for six to nine months. As the mother has to nourish a fully developed and rapidly growing infant, she needs extra nutrients to meet the baby’s needs in addition to her own requirements. Any inadequacies in her diet influences both the quantity and quality of milk secreted, though the effect on quantity is more.

However, the quality of breast milk does not suffer as much with reduced nutrition. Even if the diet is not able to meet her own nutritional needs, the mother draws on