Can You Take Creatine While Breastfeeding?

Exercise and physical activity and performance are important parts of our lives even after pregnancy and while still nursing our babies. Taking supplements like creatine is a common way to improve physical performance and strength.

For women who want to improve their regular workouts and overall physical fitness, creatine supplementation can be a good addition to their diet. However, is it safe enough to be taken while breastfeeding? What effects can creatine supplementation have on your baby while breastfeeding or nursing them?

In this article, we will explore these issues including what creatine is, how it works, the benefits of taking creatine supplements, potential side effects of creatine, and the effects of creatine use while breastfeeding.

What is Creatine?

Creatine is a dietary supplement most commonly used to increase muscle mass and exercise performance. It is naturally present inside muscle cells and aids them in producing enough ATP (adenosine triphosphate) for intense physical activity. Creatine is produced in the body from the amino acids glycine and arginine. It is also found in red meat, dairy products, and seafood.

Creatines are used by athletes and bodybuilders for muscle-building purposes. It’s because it helps them to grow muscles as well as strengthen their bodies and improve their performances. The most common form of creatine is creatine monohydrate which is relatively cheap and has been well-researched.

How Does Creatine Work?

Creatine increases muscle in the body by enabling more work in a single training session, increasing the level of anabolic hormones in the body as well as cell hydration which plays a role in muscle growth.

Creatine also reduces protein breakdown and myostatin levels, which helps to increase total muscle mass in the body. It is effective for short-term and long-term muscle growth in all kinds of people including sedentary people, older adults, and elite athletes.

Benefits of Creatine

Creatine supplements help the body produce energy by producing a high-energy molecule called ATP. The more ATP you have in your body, the better you can perform during exercise. Creatine helps to improve strength, power, and performance in high-intensity exercise.

In women, creatine can help reduce body fat and increase upper body strength. It also helps women build lower body strength without significant body weight gain i.e. ‘’no bulking effect’’.

Creatine can also help women reduce their risk of osteoporosis by slowing bone loss. Women have less bone mass than men and so are at a higher risk of developing osteoporosis, a condition that makes bones weak and brittle with increasing age.

Creatine has the potential to protect the brain, diaphragm, and kidney of the unborn baby during pregnancy. Studies in animals show that creatine has the ability to protect these organs from hypoxic insult which leads to brain injury due to a lack of oxygen.

Creatine may have the potential to treat, slow the progression and reduce the risk of neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, epilepsy, brain or spinal cord injuries, and motor neuron disease. However, more research is needed on humans in this area.

Creatine is also an antioxidant with the ability to neutralize free radicals in the body. Creatine supplementation can also help with inadequate nutrient supply in pregnancy from the mother to the unborn baby.

This supplementation is a potentially safe and low-cost treatment to reduce pregnancy complications associated with low oxygen or lack of oxygen from mother to baby, during pregnancy.

Creatine can also help enhance and stabilize fluctuating placental and pregnancy energy requirements, making mothers and babies healthier. In the future, clinical trials aim to increase testing for creatine as a pregnancy supplement to support the development of healthy babies.

Side Effects of Creatine

Possible side effects of supplementing with creatine are weight gain, cramping, digestive problems, or issues with liver damage or liver diseases and kidney function. Creatine may also cause dehydration, muscle cramps, or kidney stones.

Effects of Creatine while Breastfeeding

Creatine is normally found in human milk and supplies about 9% of the baby’s daily requirements. In the body, creatine is converted into creatinine. So, the mother’s intake of creatine while breastfeeding may lead to an increase in the baby’s creatinine blood level, which can alter kidney function.

Some researchers propose that creatine intake by nursing mothers might help prevent creatine deficiency syndromes, but this is yet to be proven as there are no studies yet to test this theory.

Some babies may experience slight bloating, and burping and may even spit up more often when they are nursed by a mother supplementing with creatine. This is because creatine can cause abdominal discomfort resulting in these signs.

Faqs:

Infants do not get enough vitamin D from breast milk on their own. Most newborns need supplemental vitamin D sources soon after delivery.

An oral creatine supplement is a risk-free, inexpensive remedy that may lessen pregnancy issues linked to poor or insufficient oxygen from the individual mother to the fetus during pregnancy.

Conclusion

Creatine has a range of benefits from improving muscle growth and exercise performance to reducing the risk of neurological diseases. Although creatine supplement is considered generally safe for most individuals. Women’s nutritional needs and bodily functions change significantly during pregnancy and breastfeeding.

Some female athletes may continue to take creatine regularly when they become pregnant. But the impact of the supplementation in pregnancy and while breastfeeding is not fully understood.

This is because there is not much research done on creatine in pregnancy and breastfeeding. It is recommended that nursing mothers avoid taking creatine supplements unless it is prescribed by a healthcare professional.

It is best to speak to your doctor before taking any supplements if you are pregnant or breastfeeding for medical advice. If you must take creatine supplements, always adhere to the recommended dosage.