It's not the most PC thing to admit, but more and more moms are jumping on the breast-feeding wagon for the love of their...waist, reports Catherine Saint Louis for the New York Times. "For those incredibly shrinking women, the time they nurse is precious not only for its skin-on-skin cuddling, but also for the Get Out of Dieting Jail Free card that comes with it," she found. “Nobody wants to admit ‘I’m doing it to help myself look hot again,’" said one new mom. "It’s tough to admit to other people that everything isn’t about the baby."
While a study of Danish women shows that the more a new mother breastfeeds, the more weight she will have lost 6 months after birth, the tactic doesn't work for everyone, and a smaller study has concluded that women who don’t breastfeed lose weight faster, perhaps because of the lack of an appetite-stimulating hormone or because they have more time for a traditional weight-loss activity: exercise. Still, one slimmed-down convert says her workmates are envious. "I had a baby suckling 600 calories a day out of me.” (More breast feeding stories.)