You might be worrying about the amount of fat in your breast milk. The amount of articles that claim ways to increase the amount of fat in your breastmilk might also concern you.
First of all the amount of fat in breastmilk changes dramatically during each feeding and throughout the day. And research tells us that mom’s diet does not affect the average amount of fat or calories in her milk.
The fat content depends mostly on the degree of emptyness of the breast (empty breast = high fat, full breast = low fat).
Length of feed is also irrelevant – some babies take a full feed in 4 minutes per side while others take 40 minutes to get the same amount. You can’t tell anything about fat content from the length of the feed, so let the baby determine it.
Finally, baby’s milk intake is the only thing that has been correlated with growth in exclusively breastfed babies.
However if you’re struggling with proper weight gain you should check the basics; proper latch, frequency and duration. Weight gain issues in babies are almost always a quantity issue not quality.
