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During breastfeeding most of the calcium in milk is borrowed from the mother's bones: spine bone density falls 5% to 10% on average over 3 to 6 months of exclusive breastfeeding. In a randomized trial, calcium supplements did not stop the fall or raise milk calcium; bone is rebuilt after weaning.
The iodine in breast milk follows the mother's iodine intake, so getting enough matters while breastfeeding; the recommendation the US CDC cites is 290 micrograms a day. Cooking with iodized salt and eating seafood, eggs and milk supplies the raw material for the baby's thyroid.
The fatty acid make-up of breast milk follows what the mother eats. In an analysis of 65 studies, breast-milk DHA ranged from 0.06% to 1.4% of fatty acids, with the highest levels in coastal populations who eat a lot of seafood.
Breast milk carries little vitamin D, far less than a baby needs, so the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that breastfed babies, fully or partly breastfed, get a vitamin D supplement every day from the first few days of life, at a dose set by the pediatrician.
The alcohol level in breast milk is essentially the same as in the mother's blood, peaks 30 to 60 minutes after a drink, and falls only as the liver clears alcohol from the blood; newborns break alcohol down at about half the adult rate. Not drinking is safest; after a single drink, wait at least 2 hours before breastfeeding.
→Iron
Milk iron does not change with the mother's intake, so the iron question after birth is the mother's own: blood lost at delivery drains her stores, while in the first 8 weeks of exclusive breastfeeding periods rarely return, saving the iron that bleeding would take. Where anemia in pregnancy is common, the World Health Organization says iron may be given for 6 to 12 weeks after birth, a recommendation based on low-certainty evidence.
Progesterone and estrogen fall sharply after birth. In an experiment with only 16 women that simulated high pregnancy hormone levels and then withdrew them, 5 of the 8 women with a history of postnatal depression developed clear depressive symptoms and none of the other 8 did, suggesting that some people are unusually sensitive to hormone withdrawal. The World Health Organization recommends screening for depression and anxiety after birth with a validated questionnaire.