Hefeweizen helps nursing mom express milk

by Mike Wood

I'm sure this sounds like a April fools joke but its not. Just last month my wife and I had a baby daughter. My wife had been feeling under the weather with a cold and had a long labor (50+ hours) and became quite dehydrated and stressed. After several days of drinking fluids and taking it easy, we became concerned that her milk hadn't come in. After consulting the doctor and nurses, we increased her drinking of water to over a gallon a day but to no avail.

Finally, a friend suggested that yeast can help stimulate the production of milk. Rather than buy yeast and drink it, she suggested a beer would do the trick. Being a homebrewer and beer enthusiasts, I suggested a beer with a lot of yeast, say a hefeweizen should do the trick if their was any validity to the claim.

As it turns out, if worked immediately. The best beer thus far isWidmer Hefeweizen from a tap followed by the same in bottles followed by Pyramid Hefe in bottles.

If you want to ask what the science behind it is, I have no real idea only guesses. It could be that the vitamins in the yeast are more readably accessible to the body than the pill form. It could be something funny with the yeast byproducts. In any case, only one bottle of beer was necessary so don;t get your hopes up of using it as an excuse to finish off the keg after the pregnancy.

Click here to see the responses from the internet posting.