Apparently they are making D3 vegan through Lichen. It’s supposedly got a seal of approval from Vegan Society and council. Sounds like it might be worth a shot, and the price seems right. However, to me it seems too good to be true.

On another note, I always look forward to the sun!

Since this article was posted, the Health Canada link has changed (I’ve updated it,) and they now appear to recommend supplementation for all breastfed infants. Keep in mind that their advice is geared towards a Canadian audience where sunlight is less intense. The current recommendation, as pulled from the Health Canada page, is that “It is recommended that the vitamin D supplement be started at birth and continue until the baby’s diet includes at least 10 µg (400 IU) per day of vitamin D from other dietary sources or until the breastfed infant reaches one year of age.” Furthermore, “Studies suggest that vitamin D stores are depleted within eight weeks of birth in breastfed infants who do not receive a vitamin D supplement and who are born to mothers with adequate vitamin D stores” and I hope this sufficiently backs up the section you’re referring to (which, again, had sources mentioned earlier, but they were not directly footnoted at the point of mention in my post, and I apologize for the confusion!)

I’d love to have more information on breastfeeding listed here, but the simple fact is that I was unable to find much in the form of solid research. Most of the vitamin D research I’ve seen still focuses on preventing rickets, and while the medical community is developing more knowledge on other benefits of D, the recommendations, particularly for infants, tend to be based on expert opinion and not evidence-based studies. There are ethical considerations that make it difficult to have a control-based study of infant nutrition, but it’s frustrating just the same!

And for the record, we’re huge fans of breastfeeding here, having exclusively breastfed our son for the past 12 weeks. I’d love to write more, but I’m trying hard not to flood the internets with links to half-baked articles that just happen to support my personal theories – there’s enough of that going around. Breastfeeding is recommended by most if not all health organizations as the best way to raise an infant if at all possible, but I don’t know what else I could say about it in an article about D other than “if you’re breastfeeding, supplementation is recommended.” If you have suggestions, I’m more than happy to receive them!

Will breastfeeding supply vitamin D?
Vitamin D does exist in breast milk for mothers with adequate levels themselves, but it’s not considered enough to meet the daily recommended levels. On a semi-related note, your baby may have some vitamin D on backup from what it got through the placenta while in the womb, but this usually is only enough for a few months at most.

No sources cited? At all? And only one brief paragraph on breastfeeding when talking about needs of a new born infant?!