BABIES ARE BEING PREMATURELY WEANED ON SOLID FOOD STUDY CONCLUDES

 

 photo:GuardianUK

A study of infant weaning has revealed that most children are weaned on solid food too soon.  Most mothers are at a loss on the actual best age for withdrawing milk and moving on to solid food.  In some cases however, they are actually guided into doing so by their pediatrician.  

The adopted guideline so far is 6 months old for infants.  Before that, they are simply not equipped to digest solid food according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.  

In fact, introducing solid food too early can cause a host of ill effects later on in life, such as c.v. disease, diabetes, obesity, celiac disease and others. 

However, the new study is contending that even that deadline is too early. After surveying 1,334 mothers, almost 93% had actually weaned before the sixth month, and in 40% of the cases even before the fourth month of life, and in some cases, almost 9%, mothers had actually tried to feed their babies solid food before the end of their first month of life.  

And 50% of these mothers had done so after being told by their pediatrician that it was time to introduce solid food to their infants.  

The study points to a need for better guidelines and information emanating from the medical community.  

In some cases, the study found, the mothers had begun feeding their infants solid food because they thought that the child was not getting sufficient nutrition from milk alone, or because their baby 'seemed hungry'.  In some cases they thought the baby wanted to share grown up food, or a doctor or health provider had indicated to them that they should do so.  

Another facet of the study showed that mothers who breast feed introduce the baby to solid food later, versus those mothers who give formula to their children, by a rate of 53% against 24%.

Another problem highlighted by the study was that mothers who introduced their children to solid food prematurely were also shortchanging them of the milk quantity they would have received had they not been weaned, whether that would have been breast milk or formula, and that was actually a greater cause of malnutrition than not introducing the baby to solid food, because both breast milk and formula have all the nutrients the baby needs in the exact proportions needed.   

What ends up happening with the introduction of solid food prematurely is that the child actually gets more calories but less nutrients.

Source: nbc news 3.26.13