The "no restrictions" advice that's keeping postpartum guts inflamed

In Today's Issue:

Why "eat whatever you want postpartum" ignores gut physiology
What traditional cultures knew about preparing dairy and gluten
Why the conversation is always about baby, never about maternal recovery
Bonus downloads for you at the end!

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Scroll through postpartum nutrition content and you'll see it everywhere:

"No need to remove dairy or gluten!"
"There's no evidence!"
"It doesn't affect your baby through breastmilk!"

The entire conversation centers on whether foods affect the infant through breastfeeding.

Never whether they affect maternal recovery.

What's Actually Happening in the Postpartum Gut

The postpartum gut is physiologically different:

Microbiome shifted dramatically in late pregnancy and needs months to rebuild
Gut barrier compromised from birth stress
Digestive enzyme production suppressed
Inflammation elevated as part of normal healing

In this compromised state, dairy and gluten, the two most inflammatory foods for gut barriers, create significantly more inflammation than they would in healthy guts.

Dairy contains casein that's difficult to digest even with normal gut function. With reduced postpartum enzymes, casein triggers immune responses and increases inflammation.

Gluten affects gut barrier integrity. Research shows gluten increases zonulin production, which loosens tight junctions in the gut lining (hello gas, bloating, and food allergies!)

Here's what changes the conversation: traditional cultures DID use gluten and dairy postpartum.

They just prepared them completely differently.

Traditional Gluten: Wheat, barley, and millet were used across agrarian cultures—but they were:

Fermented (sourdough, porridges)
Soaked overnight
Sprouted
Stone-ground for better digestion
Slow-cooked into congees and gruels

These preparation methods broke down inflammatory proteins, made nutrients bioavailable, and reduced gut burden.

Modern gluten: highly processed, quickly leavened, consumed in forms that maximize gut burden. Nothing like what traditional cultures ate.

Traditional Dairy: When used postpartum, dairy was:

Fermented into yogurt and kefir
Cultured as clabbered milk
Clarified into ghee

Fermentation breaks down casein and lactose, reducing inflammatory load.

Modern dairy is pasteurized, homogenized, and consumed in highly inflammatory forms (cheese, milk, ice cream) that traditional postpartum cultures never used.

The Questions Nobody Asks

The conversation is always: "Does it affect breastmilk?"

Never: "Is this supporting her gut healing? Reducing her inflammation? Helping her absorb nutrients?"

Maternal inflammation matters. Gut healing matters. Nutrient absorption matters for mental health, hormone production, energy, and physical recovery.

Not just for milk production. For the MOTHER.

"But There's No Research!"

Of course there isn't research on postpartum elimination diets.

Who would fund it? There's no pharmaceutical profit in telling mothers to temporarily remove inflammatory foods.

The absence of research isn't evidence it doesn't matter. It's evidence maternal healing has never been profitable enough to study.

This Isn't Restriction. It's Strategic Support

The removal of modern gluten and dairy isn't about rejecting tradition or creating unnecessary restrictions.

It's recognizing that compromised postpartum guts cannot handle industrially processed foods the way they could handle traditionally prepared versions.

Temporary elimination supports compromised guts to heal so they can eventually handle all foods again.

This isn't restriction. It's precision support for recovery.

When the gut heals, when inflammation calms, when digestive function restores, then the body can handle a wider variety of foods without inflammatory response.

But rushing this process by following "no restrictions" advice keeps mothers stuck in chronic inflammation, nutrient malabsorption, and prolonged depletion.

The evidence is in the physiology of the postpartum gut. The evidence is in traditional preparation methods. The evidence is in thousands of years of cultural wisdom about supporting maternal recovery.

Free Resources for Supporting Postpartum Nutrition

Want practical tools for understanding postpartum nutritional needs?

Download our free Postpartum Nutrition Handouts Guide - comprehensive information you can share with clients about nutrient-dense foods, traditional preparation methods, and gut-supportive eating.

Plus: Get our Mineral Depletion Guide - understand which minerals are most commonly depleted postpartum and how to replenish them through food.