Why I no longer breastfeed my girl, by Serena
SERENA Williams yesterday opened up about how she stopped breastfeeding her daughter after six months because it caused her to gain weight.
The seven-time tennis champion spoke about the emotional decision to give up nursing as she prepared for her Wimbledon comeback.
She said the old adage that new mothers lose weight by breastfeeding is false and that she actually dropped 4.5kg almost immediately after stopping.
‘It was interesting because all these articles over pop culture, you hear when you breastfeed you lose weight, and you’re so thin,’ she said, adding: ‘That wasn’t happening to me... I didn’t know that it wasn’t true.’
The 36-year-old gave birth to her first child, Alexis Olympia, in September and took more than a year off. She said she planned to stop breastfeeding in January, but then continued until April before being advised by her team to stop in order to get into shape.
The mother of one said: ‘I was vegan. I didn’t eat sugar. I literally have my chef total vegan.
‘Not French fry-eating vegan.
‘It just didn’t work for me’
Totally eating completely healthy. I wasn’t at the weight that I would have been had I not.’
She added: ‘For my body it didn’t work. No matter how much I worked out, no matter how much I did, it didn’t work for me.’
Williams said that once her daughter was six months old, she finally felt she was able to stop nursing. ‘Then it was just emotionally letting go,’ she said.
‘That was a different thing. I literally sat Olympia in my arms, I talked to her, we prayed about it.
‘I told her, “Look, I’m going to stop. Mommy has to do this.” I cried a little bit, not as much as I thought I would. She was fine.’
Williams added: ‘After that, like literally, I lost ten pounds [4.5kg] in a week. It was crazy. I just kept dropping... that’s when I learned that everything was different.’
Williams, who wore a stunning catsuit at the French Open in tribute to mothers who have had difficult pregnancies like hers, added: ‘I wanted to say that so women out there know that’s not true.
‘Everyone takes things different. I think it’s important for us to share that message.’
The act of breastfeeding has long been associated with post-partum weight loss and is said to burn between 300 and 500 calories a day for the mother. Women are advised to feed babies only breast milk until they are six months old by the World Health Organisation.
Breastfed babies are less likely to become obese as the milk has a lower fat content than formula.
Williams, who is married to tech millionaire Alexis Ohanian and was among the guests at the recent royal wedding in the UK, took her daughter onto Wimbledon’s Centre Court last week and shared the moment on social media.
She said it was the first time she had taken Alexis on-site at a Grand Slam event.
‘I got a little emotional when I was telling her a story about a girl who had a big dream,’ she said. ‘I started getting choked up. I never felt that before, you know. Just taking all that moment and having the opportunity to share it with my daughter and my future.
‘I’ve been to the other Grand Slam, but I never actually brought her on-site. This was the first one. Obviously it was really special for me. I wanted it to be special for her, too.’
Williams is due to play her first match this afternoon on Court One against Dutch player Arantxa Rus. It marks the first step towards her bid for an eighth Wimbledon singles title.