Nourishing Your Postpartum Journey: The Power of Bone Broth
In the whirlwind of early postpartum recovery, finding practical ways to nourish your body and regain strength is essential. Enter bone broth, a nutrient-dense elixir that has been a culinary staple for centuries. Packed with key vitamins and minerals, important amino acids, and anti-inflammatory properties, bone broth provides a wealth of nutrition and wellness benefits to new mothers. In this blog post, we’ll explore why bone broth is so supportive for postpartum health, how to make your own bone broth, and how to easily incorporate bone broth into your postpartum diet.
The Importance of Postpartum Nutrition
Many of us are aware of the importance of nutrition during pregnancy, but posptartum nutrition is just as important. You’ve just spent 40 weeks (or so) growing an entire person. Your baby is literally built from your body, and nature has designed that process so that baby’s needs are met first, which means that sometimes there’s not a whole lot left over for you, especially if nutrition was not a priority prior to and during your pregnancy.
Childbirth takes a lot out of you as well! It’s been estimated that the energy you use during childbirth is equivalent to running a marathon. Following childbirth, your body requires many essential nutrients to repair and recover, particularly if your labour and childbirth involved medical intervention.
This is why the postpartum period is so crucial: this is the time to rest, rejuvinate, recover, and replenish. Posptartum nutrition plays a crucial role in refilling your depleted nutrient stores as well as in providing your body with key nutrients it needs to repair and restore after pregnancy and childbirth.
What is Bone Broth?
Bone broth is a rich, flavourful liquid made by cooking animal bones and connective tissue (and often vegetables and herbs) at a low temperature over a long period of time. This long cooking period allows for nutrients from the bones and marrow to concentrate in the liquid, creating a nutritious and delicious soup base. While it has recently become a trendy food, bone broth has been around for a very long time: many traditional cultures include bone broths in their diet.
Why Bone Broth is a Postpartum Must-Have
Bone broth is a fantastic food to include in your postpartum diet, for many reasons. It is warming, grounding, and calming, which all promote recovery and restoration. It is easy to digest, so your body doesn’t have to expend a lot of energy pulling nutrients from it. It’s convenient and easy to add to your diet. And, perhaps most importantly, it is a nutritional powerhouse. Here are some examples of vital nutrients contained in bone broth and how they can be beneficial to your postpartum recovery:
Bone broth is packed with key minerals: Bone broth is a great source of minerals like calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus that are important for postpartum recovery. These nutrients can help replenish your body's reserves that may have been depleted during pregnancy, promoting overall health.
Bone broth is rich in collagen: Your body needs collagen to heal and repair tissues after childbirth. Collagen also supports skin, joint, and muscle recovery, helping you bounce back quicker.
Bone broth supports your immune system: The amino acids in bone broth, such as glycine and arginine, can help strengthen your immune response, keeping you healthy so that you are able to care for yourself and your baby.
Bone broth supports your mental health: The amino acid glycine contained in bone broth has a calming effect on the nervous system, helping to stabilize it and promoting calm and relaxation.
Bone borth supports hormonal balance: Hormones can fluctuate dramatically postpartum. Bone broth contains nutrients like zinc and amino acids that support hormone regulation, helping you maintain emotional well-being.
Is Bone Broth Good for Breastfeeding Mothers?
In short: absolutely! An optimal breastfeeding diet is full of nutrient-dense, real food, which can definitely include bone broth. In fact, bone broth is one of my favourite foods to recommend to breastfeeding mothers: it is packed with nutrients, quick to heat up, and easy to sip on while breastfeeding.
How to Make Bone Broth
Making your own bone broth is a simple and cost-effective way to incorporate this nourishing food into your postpartum diet. Avoiding store-bought bone broth also helps you control the ingredients, so you can avoid potentially harmful additives that are often included in store bought broth.
There are many recipes online that you can follow (and you’ll find a few of my favourites down below), but here’s a basic recipe to get you started:
Basic Bone Broth Recipe
Ingredients:
Chicken or beef bones (or a combination of both)
Water
Vegetables (such as carrots, celery, garlic, and onions)
Herbs and spices (such as bay leaves, thyme, and peppercorns)
Apple Cider Vinegar
Instructions:
If using beef bones: preheat the oven to 400F. Place bones on a baking sheet and roast for 30 minutes.
Place bones, vegetables, herbs, and vinegar in a large pot. Fill with water until bones are fully submerged.
Bring the mixture to a boil, then cover, reduce heat, and gently simmer on low for at least 12 hours. Occasionally skim any accumulated foam or fat.
Strain the broth and discard the solids. Allow to cool. Skim the accumulated fat off the top (optional).
Refrigerate and use within 5 days, or freeze in small portions and use within 6 months.
Homemade Bone Broth Tips
Buy good quality bones
Opt for bones from reputable sources, preferably organic and grass-fed. This ensures that your bone broth is free from harmful additives and pesticides and has the maximum amount of nutrients. If you’re having trouble sourcing good quality bones, ask your butcher, visit your local farmers market, or enquire with local farmers.
Use good quality vegetables and herbs
As with your bones, use organic and local vegetables for your bone broth to make sure that you’re not adding harmful chemicals like pesticides and fertilizers, while maximizing the amount of nutrients.
Save your bones in the freezer
If you regularly purchase good quality meat, keep those bones! Store them in a bag or container in the freezer and use them for bone broth once the bag is full. You can also add vegetable discards to your bag- think onion and garlic ends and skins, carrot and celery tops and bottoms, etc.
Use an Instant Pot, pressure cooker, or slow cooker
To make the process even simpler, cook your bone broth in an Instant Pot, pressure cooker, or slow cooker. Pressure cooking your bone broth shrinks the cook time dramatically to just a few hours; using a slow cooker takes the worry out of leaving your stove on overnight or if you’re out.
Don’t forget the vinegar
Apple Cider Vinegar is a key ingredient in bone broth, as the acidity helps to extract nutrients from the bones. If you don’t have apple cider vinegar on hand, you can use white vinegar or even lemon juice.
Freeze in easy-to-use portions
Freeze your bone broth in ready-to-use small portions (e.g. 1-2 cups). I also highly recommend making some very small portions in ice cube trays, which you can easily throw into dishes as you cook for a bit of added nutrition (see my tips below).
Need more recipe guidance?
Looking for more detailed recipes? Here are a few of my favourites:
What If I’m Vegan/Vegetarian?
If you’re vegan, vegetarian, or prefer to avoid animal bones, a great nourishing alternative is mushroom broth. It takes a bit more of an effort to make, but it is so worth it! My favourite recipe is this shiitake broth recipe (make sure to scroll down past the beef broth recipe!).
How to Incorporate Bone Broth into Your Postpartum Diet
Okay, so you’ve made your big batch of bone broth, now what? Here are my favourite ways to include bone broth in your postpartum diet:
Sip It: Classic Bone Broth
Enjoy a warm cup of bone broth by itself or add a pinch of salt and pepper for flavor. Sip it as a comforting drink throughout the day.
2. Use Bone Broth as a Cooking Base
Use bone broth as your broth base for soups, stews, risottos, gravy, or anywhere else where you would usually use broth or stock.
3. Use Bone Broth as a Cooking Liquid
Use bone broth in place of water as your cooking liquid for rice, quinoa, and other grains. You can also use small amounts of bone broth when sautéing vegetables to add moisture (this is where those ice cube portions come in handy).
4. Use Bone Broth in Your Smoothie
Full disclosure: I’ve never tried this. But apparently it’s a thing. Find out more here and please let me know if you try this!
A Final Word on Bone Broth for Postpartum Support
Your postpartum health and wellness is super important, not just for your own well-being, but so that you are best able to care for your family, including your new baby. A key part of this is postpartum nutrition, so that your body has ample amounts of essential nutrients to help you recover and restore after pregnancy and childbirth. While regularly consuming good quality bone broth can go a long way in supporting your postpartum recovery, it’s only one component of postpartum health and wellness. For full postpartum nutrition and wellness support, I’m here for you!