national breastfeeding month

It’s National Breastfeeding Month, and we at ChooseMyPlate.gov are celebrating moms everywhere! Caring for a child is no small task, and MyPlate has resources to support moms and moms-to-be.

As a nutritionist and a mom with baby #2 on the way, I know it can be overwhelming to figure out what you should be eating to keep you and your baby healthy. MyPlate’s SuperTracker, a free food, physical activity and weight tracking tool, offers personalized food plans specifically for breastfeeding moms. Simply create a profile and enter information about you and your baby to get your plan. You can also use SuperTracker’s Food Tracker to track your daily meals and see how they stack up to your plan. Since SuperTracker is mobile-friendly, you can enter them on your phone or tablet while you’re nursing.  We moms are excellent multi-taskers!

To highlight the importance of a healthy start in life, more than 170 countries celebrated World Breastfeeding Week earlier this month.  Themed “Breastfeeding: A Winning Goal for Life,” the recognition encourages the practice to improve the health of babies around the globe.  The U.S. Breastfeeding Committee (USBC) takes it a step further, recognizing the entire month of August as “National Breastfeeding Month.”

USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service shares this commitment.  In fact, its Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (better known as WIC) promotes breastfeeding as the optimal infant feeding choice.  We support breastfeeding among WIC moms by providing counseling and educational materials, offering healthy food packages, and giving out breastfeeding aids, like breast pumps.