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Babies 'don't need baby food'
[Posted: Mon 18/06/2007]
Feeding babies mashed or pureed food is unnecessary, and could even be unhealthy, a senior director at Unicef (United Nations' Children's Fund) has said.
Gill Rapley, deputy director of Unicef's Baby Friendly Initiative on infant nutrition, has produced a DVD and other information about correct feeding for babies.
She says research and experience both concluded that there is not an interim time between a milk-only diet and solids. Babies should have milk only, then start on solid foods, eating what satisfied them.
"In 2002 the World Health Organisation backed research that found breast or formula milk provided all the nutrition a baby needs up to the age of six months," Ms Rapley said.
"That research said feeding a baby any other food during the first six months would dilute the nutritional value of the milk and might even be harmful to the baby's health.
"Sound scientific research and government advice now agree that there is no longer any window of a baby's development in which they need something more than milk and less than solids," said Ms Rapley, who has 25 years' experience as a UK health visitor.
She said babies are capable of chewing at six months, and giving them pureed baby foods such as those widely available commercially could delay development of chewing ability.
The Observer newspaper estimated that the baby food industry is worth €675 million in Britain alone. Ms Rapley said that giving babies an interim and unnatural diet could be bad news for future eating habits.
"I found so many parents were coming to me with the same problems, saying 'my child is constipated, my child is really picky', and they couldn't get them on to second-stage baby food," she said.
Ms Rapley says there is no reason young children need pureed food, as long as they are sitting up straight and supervised by an adult when eating.
Jenny Posted:
18/06/2007 18:01 |
| I don't understand this opinion because if you go down this road, you will have parents giving babies either food that is not chewable or giving them the same food all the time. The point of giving precise, commercial baby food is to make sure that they get enough nutrients, iron etc and for the working Mums that is a god send because at least you know they are getting a varied diet. This report, therefore, to me, is misleading. |
|
Anonymous
Posted:
19/06/2007 10:36 |
| I would far prefer to give my child pureed food which I have pureed myself (food processsers coem in handy) than the commercial rubbish that comes out of jars and is full of additives. |
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Jenny Posted:
19/06/2007 18:02 |
| Anonymous, there are no additives in most commercial baby food and a lot of it is organic. I don't recommend it's use all of the time but it has a place for busy Mums or those that are not particularly good cooks/nutritionists. It amuses me though that anyone would have that view because the amount of children that are brought into Mac's even in pushchairs, is not exactly an ideal situation either. |
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Anonymous
Posted:
20/06/2007 08:34 |
| there are no additives in most commercial baby food - that is Most, not all and do you think all paents using it always rwad the labels? Unlikely. If busy Mums - and Dads are happy with their choice and don't cook then so be it. I agree entirely with regard to childrne in pushchairs being brought into fastfood establishments. I have seen them - bottle in one little hand and fries in the other. It baffles me. |
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John(johnwilliams) Posted:
20/06/2007 19:10 |
| I am old enough to remember when there was no such thing as 'baby food'. There was just food. Now everything is commercialised with no advantgae to the customer except much higher cost. |
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M Posted:
21/06/2007 09:10 |
| Am in my 60's and when mine were young there was certainly baby food then. Children don't go from formula / breastmilk to meat and two veg you know, John. |
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Bindy Posted:
21/06/2007 13:01 |
| I agree M, there has always been baby food. Why, look at Farley's rusks and how long they have been on the market There was always a high risk of babies getting iron deficiency because of bad diet. Certainly, it was a reality in my own case being a faddy eater as a child. When you have a child that is a faddy eater you need to make sure they get more than just 1 type of food all the time. There are risks with feeding babies table food pureed as some parents seem to think that babies can eat the same as them. Wasn't there a case of a child in the media a few years ago who died for this very reason because they were getting too much salt in their diet because the parents were giving the child a pureed version of what they were eating. Children have different dietary needs. |
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John(johnwilliams) Posted:
21/06/2007 22:44 |
| M. Nobody suggested a baby goes from milk to meat and two veg. I remeber when the first Heinz tins of baby food came out. I heard people say it would never catch on. Rusks were available before my time but then they were considered a treat not an essential part of the diet. If there is proper food served in a house babies can, as from time immemorial, eat normal food if it is properly mashed etc. To suggest anything else is a cover for laziness - it is easier to open a jar. |
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Anonymous
Posted:
22/06/2007 10:18 |
| I think to call it laziness is pretty insulting to all the hard pressed parents out there working full time with other kids to care for. If a child is well cared for, properly fed anfd nutritionally lacking it doesn't mater a damn bit if it comes from jar, blender or elsewhere - the parents are the eones paying for it / doing it. |
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Pixie Posted:
22/06/2007 19:13 |
| John, So you say rusks were considered a treat! Well, that was because the children were going around with bread and dripping and/or marietta biscuits smothered in jam/honey. Not to be recommended now, one would think. Of course, that is a very patronising remark you made regarding laziness. If both parents are out at work all day and the 'baby' is in a child minders, do you think it is recommended that the parents start cooking when they get home, to ensure the baby has a balanced diet? No, of course not, and that is exactly where the jars come in. Its nothing to do with laziness and more to do with common sense and ensuring that your child gets adequate nutrients. |
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Tinks Mum Posted:
24/06/2007 00:10 |
| I’m a successful BLWer and wanted to answer some of the queries on here. Firstly, Jenny. The idea is not to give food that is not chewable or the same food all the time. The idea is that you give exactly the same foods as you eat, minus salt (although Gill has spoken about this and said that there is nothing wrong with giving them the option. Research has found they will try it and reject it as babies are very good at balancing their diet and knowing what is good for them) in manageable pieces, for example carrot “chips”, broccoli, toast soldiers etc. Until a baby is one food is only for fun, babies will take everything they need from breastmilk, so there is no need to worry about balancing their food with commercial food which can never live up to breastmilk. I have to agree that the majority of reports I have seen this last week are misleading. I recommend to you that you type Baby led weaning into a search engine or have a look at babyledweaning.com or the Yahoo Group B-LW as that is how you will get real accurate information, that does make sense, written by successful BLW Mums. To M and JohnWilliams, do you know the history of formula and baby food? In the 1950s formula companies started telling mothers that their milk was not good for babies (in France they still are!) actually, in those days formula wasn’t enough to sustain a baby through six months of exclusive milk feeding, so mothers had to wean their babies sooner. At three months old a baby is not able to eat the solid foods that had been given previously at six months so purees became popular. I have no doubt that there was always some sort of baby food available, it just wasn’t used as weaning. When a baby was six months most parents started on finger food, they’d been shovelling in puree long enough! |
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John(johnwilliams) Posted:
25/06/2007 08:28 |
| If parents admit that they buy convenience food for their baby because they are hard-pressed for time, I have no problem with it. What I have a problem with is when a study from UNICEF is denigrated under the pretence that the results are somehow wrong, to justify feeding convenience foods to babies. By the way preparing baby food takes up very little time, it is the feeding which is the slowest part. Small bite-sized pieces of bread soaked in a soft boiled egg was my children's favourite but the mess! |
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M. Posted:
25/06/2007 12:04 |
| John, you say that babies can eat normal food if properly mashed. And how do you propose to mash a lamb chop? You seem to forget that even the tiniest piece of vegetable or meat which is a little larger than baby can comfortably deal with, can cause choking. Also John, do you think every creche and daycare facility mashes all the meals for all the children in their care? |
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M. Posted:
25/06/2007 14:56 |
| Yes, Tinks Mum - in an ideal world, but the fact is that most babaies move onto solids at around 6 months and this is considered quite normal. The vast majotity of mothers, even among those who can and want to, will not be in a posisiton to breastfeed past 6 months as most go back to work, their milk supplu drops and some return to using the OCP among other things. Baby lead weaning is a nice ideal in an ideal world where all mothers could always stay at home with each baby until they child is a year old but this is not the case as we all know. |
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Tinks Mum Posted:
25/06/2007 15:52 |
| John, the sstudy (which has nothing to do with UNICEF) has been misquoted, what Gill Rapley is saying (as does everyother professional body) is that feeding purees before six months is a health problem. Yes, the study does go into the ideal way to wean babies done by studying BOTH forms of weaning. When the study group was nine months old Gill Rapley held a picnic to see how everyone was getting on. The BLW group were eating pizzas, sandwiches etc, normal picnic food, the puree group were jealously spooning in the puree! Mashing foods is unnecessary, even meat can easily be handled by a baby, I have a lovely pic from the weekend of my daughter with a chunk of beef in each hand - there was little left apart from fat and ! M, babies are highly unlikeely to choke when they feed themselves, the reason is they have two safety mechanisms to prevent choking. Firstly the tongue thrust reflex pushes anything too big tto be swwallowed to the front of the mouth. Secondly, if something should happen to get past that, the gag reflex is triggered in the mouth, not the throat as in an adult. In nearly six months of watching my baby eating, she is now eating the same as we do, I have not seen her choke on anything. This is NOT the exception, I don't know anyone else who has had a choking fit and I know well over 100 BLWing mothers. |
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Pixie Posted:
25/06/2007 19:42 |
| Furthermore, John, NOBODY in the Health Profession will advise you to give eggs to a baby under a year old because of the high number of egg allergies (which have caused death actually). So perhaps your feeding regime for your children is somewhat outdated. |
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Jenny Posted:
25/06/2007 19:59 |
| TinksMum, What you say, in theory, is perfectly correct but unfortunately we live in a much 'faster' world than that of previous generations. Mums themselves live on convenience foods & eat too much processed foods so it is not advisable that these Mums give their babies the same thing that they are eating minus the salt! If babies only ate what they needed there would be no such thing as iron deficiency anaemia which is a hugely common problem in the age group 6 - 18 mths and is well researched and studied. Also, you state that "until a baby is one, taking what they need from breast milk" Again this is a great idea, in theory but again you are back to the diet of the Mum in question. If the Mum is not careful with her diet then what is the baby getting? I certainly would not take my advice from a group of mothers on a website about infant nutrition. There is no safety in that. |
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Tinks Mum Posted:
26/06/2007 15:48 |
| M, I’m not sure why you think BLW needs a mother to be around? On the occasions when someone has babysat for me, they have had no problem giving her food or drink. I’m not sure why you think that I am suggesting that babies move onto solids before six months? Jenny, the sad fact is if mothers are living on convenience foods, they always will and so will the child and they are certainly not going to be the mothers who do BLW, they will be the ones who spoon feed from a jar! BLW is the ideal in as much as a healthy diet is ideal for adults – it is simply that, the baby version of a healthy diet. I said BLW babies eat what they need, because they are given the option – this has been backed up with research and tests, I know of many mothers who have been involved with testing, their child has had all levels counted on a regular basis and are never lacking in iron or anything else they need. There really isn’t any need (other than boredom) to wean a baby before six months, the baby is not ready to handle it and milk – breast or formula – is enough to sustain a child for at least that long. I’m sorry I said “breastmilk” as it applies to formula too. As a breastfeeding mum I am guilty of forgetting occasionally that people do choose to formula feed. I’m not suggesting that anyone get nutrition advice from a blogzine, I certainly don’t, but I am suggesting that people, who knock without knowing the full story as this article is certainly FAR from the full story, look it up for themselves! |
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Jenny Posted:
27/06/2007 20:41 |
| Only one thing I want to add and that is that there are some babies who need weaning before 6 months. In fact, there are quite a lot of breast fed babies who are not satisified nutritionally or physically on breast milk alone. Mums don't introduce solids before 6 months out of laziness, they do it because they see a need and that their baby is hungry. BLW is yet again, just another 'buzz word' of the time. In reality, babies are led by their parents and are not equipped to know the difference in what they are given to eat. What sort of choices do you suggest a Mother gives a baby after a day out at work? Idealism is just that, ideal, but we do not live in an ideal world and therefore there is an onus on us to promote health and safety in regard to good nutrtrition, and not just more hype. |
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John(johnwilliams) Posted:
28/06/2007 23:18 |
| Pixie. Don't give babies eggs because of allergies! You're joking. |
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M Posted:
03/07/2007 10:30 |
| Pixie is right on this one John. Are you a pediatirician, by the way? |
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