- Researchers say breast milk from mothers who are on a vegan diet contains a sufficient amount of vitamin B2 and carnitine.
- The research counters previous studies that reported that vegan breastmilk lacked some essential nutrients.
- Experts say mothers on a vegan diet still need to make sure they are ingesting calories and nutrients for the infant’s health as well as their own health.
Following a vegan diet does not impact the levels of vitamin B2 and
That’s the conclusion of research presented this week at the 55th Annual Meeting of the European Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition.
The findings have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
In the study, researchers reported that lactating mothers who were vegan showed no difference compared with omnivorous mothers in concentrations of the two important nutrients.
“The results of our study suggest that vitamin B2 and carnitine concentrations in human milk are not influenced by consumption of a vegan diet. These results suggest that a vegan diet in lactating mothers is not a risk for the development of a vitamin B2 or carnitine deficiency in breastfed infants,” Dr. Hannah Juncker, the lead author of the study and a researcher at Amsterdam University Medical Centers in the Netherlands, said in a press statement.
“This information is useful for breastfeeding mothers and also for donor human milk banks, which collect milk for provision to premature infants who do not receive sufficient mother’s own milk,” she added.
The researchers argue their study challenges the idea that a vegan diet is not nutritionally complete and that infants who are breastfed by a vegan mother may have deficiencies in vitamin B2 or carnitine. These nutrients are important for infant development.
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