I didn’t lose weight when I was breastfeeding. I gained it

While some people did say breastfeeding helped them lose their “baby weight”, many also described holding on to or gaining weight while breastfeeding. Several agreed that breastfeeding hunger was like nothing they had ever experienced before, and others told me they only lost weight after they had stopped breastfeeding.

Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) executive officer Victoria Marshall-Cerins says while there is “some evidence” that continuing to breastfeed may help with postpartum weight loss, it definitely doesn’t happen for everyone.

Dr Melody Jackson, a GP and international board certified lactation consultant, who runs a breastfeeding clinic, agrees that it’s different for every person.

“Many factors influence postpartum weight, including metabolism, diet, activity level and hormonal changes,” Jackson says. Those hormonal changes include (but are not limited to) prolactin, the hormone responsible for milk production, which Jackson explains can promote fat storage in some people.

“Additionally, many breastfeeding parents experience an increase in appetite, which can lead to consuming more calories than they are burning. Sleep deprivation, stress and other postpartum factors can also contribute to weight retention,” she says.

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So, if breastfeeding isn’t actually a consistent method of postpartum weight loss, why is it so frequently promoted as such? And why the hell are we still focusing so much on postpartum weight loss anyway?

“It’s a retro hangover from the 1960s and 1970s,” says Dr Jennifer Hocking, who works for the ABA and is part of a University of Queensland research team focused on weight-inclusive antenatal care.

“It puts the onus back on women that they not only have to do all these things as a new mother, but they must do it all while achieving a certain ‘ideal’ weight.”

“We need to be more sophisticated in ensuring we are body positive,” adds Marshall-Cerins. “The idea that there should be no evidence in your body that you’ve had a baby – it’s unhelpful.”

Adjusting to new parenthood is hard enough without worrying about what you look like. It changes you on a cellular level, and the idea that you should somehow “bounce back” to your former self is not only ridiculous, it’s impossible.

Still, it’s one thing to know this intellectually, and another to sit in your drastically changed body, with the weight of societal expectations and your own lifetime of baggage bearing down on you.

There’s so much wonder to be had in the breastfeeding process, but that’s all the more reason to keep weight loss out of the conversation.

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