Hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, can occur during breastfeeding in women with diabetes, but a new study showed that nondiabetic breastfeeding women did not experience the problem. Results of the preliminary study will be presented Sunday, June 3, at The Endocrine Society’s 89th Annual Meeting in Toronto.

“Women with diabetes, particularly type 1 diabetes, are generally advised to snack during breastfeeding to guard against hypoglycemia,” said the study’s author, Dr. Rhonda Bentley-Lewis, an endocrinologist at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “Nondiabetic women are often counseled in the same manner; however, there is little evidence showing what happens during breastfeeding to the blood sugars of women without diabetes.”

Now her study suggests that women who do not have a history of diabetes, either before or during pregnancy, have no risk of blood sugar lowering as a result of breastfeeding.

For the study, Bentley-Lewis’ team recruited nine healthy, normal-weight women with no history of diabetes, who were exclusively breastfeeding their infants. The researchers analyzed the women’s blood glucose (sugar) levels, collected every five minutes for two days using a device called a continuous glucose monitoring system. They found that the women maintained normal blood sugar levels without eating for one hour before and one hour after breastfeeding.

Although studies in larger populations must be performed to support the findings, Bentley-Lewis said this research suggests that healthy, normal-weight women who breastfeed do not need to snack to maintain normal blood sugar levels. This should be good news to women who want to minimize weight gain after delivery.

A grant from the Iacocca Foundation supported this study.

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