Filed in Category Pediatrician Recommendations
I am looking at their charts for which foods to introduce when and I am just wondering, how do they decide that? For example, blueberries and cantaloupe are in the 8-10 month catagory, but I have given my son Gerber blueberries and apples since he was 6 months old. (He is 7 months now) Gerber had them in the stage 2 jars, how was I to know? Are they really going to hurt him? Also, I squashed up a ripe piece of melon at a restaurant and let him try it, I didn’t think it could possibly hurt him. My pediatrician said he can basically have anything that I can make the right texture for him now as long as there are no nuts, eggs, or honey, or meat. Is that true, or are there good reasons to wait on things like cherries, grapes, kiwi, broccoli, onions, etc? (He has had cherries by gerber, and grapes in his mesh teether-I do know they are a choking hazard otherwise)
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/solidfood8to10montholdbaby.htm
He didn’t tell me why meat isn’t okay yet. I think he may be a bit old fashioned. For example, he had us start cereal at 4 months old and has said that he should be eating three meals a day now (which he usually has two, but I don’t worry about it very much because he breastfeeds well.) I think he plans to okay meat at his 9 month appointment.
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The website is just a guideline. Your baby is just fine. At 7 months my son loved blueberries in his mesh bag! At 7 months my son also started to refuse baby food and started self feeding. As long as it is soft and he can gum it he can really have anything. Steamed broccoli trees and sweet potato fires are really good self feeding foods.
I think it’s just when they think the babies stomach will be mature enough to handle those foods. However, every baby is different. If your son can handle those foods already, then there’s nothing wrong with giving them to him now.
Those are just guidelines
The reason they suggest waiting on certain foods is because of the acidity of them, the fact that they are highly allergenic, and that some are difficult for babies to digest. Also some foods are better avoided simply because they do not have much nutritional value such as corn.
But, it’s your child, do what you want.
kiwi and strawberries are common allergens along with nuts
Every book and every source will have slightly different recommendations on when to give what foods, and in what order. Depends on the age of the site and who is running it. (There is much recent research, for example that finds that delaying allergins past 6 months in low-allergy risk babies isn’t necessary. Yet many sites/books still say to wait on allergins.)
Dont’ worry about it. If your baby is doing fine, then he hasn’t been bothered. Just be careful about choking hazards (remove the pits from the cherries.)
And I’m a bit surprised that the doctor hasn’t okayed meat. Did she tellyou why? (Recent sources are suggesting meat is good earlier than used to be the practice. It’s a good source of protein, iron and zinc, and not hard to digest.)
You’d have to e-mail wholesomebabyfood.com and ask them, though I warn you when I e-mailed them about some misinformation related to breastfeeding they were incredibly rude. If you read further in their site they discuss blueberries and site no evidence that supports withholding them past 6 months and yet they stick by their recommendation: http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/blueberrybabyfoodrecipes.htm
There is absolutely NO HARM in giving melon. And while some sources recommend against giving berries to babies because of allergies -this is not supported by evidence and contrary to their name blueberries and cranberries are NOT true berries aren’t covered by that theory to start with. Most actual allergist will tell you that berries, citrus, and other acidic foods can cause an “allergic type rash” in babies caused by the acid and NOT A TRUE ALLERGY.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9646449/page/2/
Food allergy fears get some of the blame for the bland approach. For decades doctors have said the best way to prevent allergies is to limit infants to bland foods, avoiding seasonings, citrus, nuts and certain seafood.
But Butte’s review found no evidence that children without family histories of food allergies benefit from this. Others suspect avoiding certain foods or eating bland diets actually could make allergies more likely. Some exposure might be a good thing.
And bring on the spices. Science is catching up with the folklore that babies in the womb and those who are breast-fed taste — and develop a taste for — whatever Mom eats. So experts say if Mom enjoys loads of oregano, baby might, too.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/38370/title/Food_allergy_advice_may_be_peanuts
Consuming peanuts in infancy appears to lessen, not increase, a child’s risk of developing a peanut allergy later, British researchers report in the November Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
The findings clash with some pediatric practices of the past decade, in which parents have been told to avoid feeding peanut products to their infants. In contrast, the new study suggests that early exposure by eating peanuts — in the form of peanut butter — might induce tolerance and head off the aberrant immune response that underlies an allergic reaction.
“This work is extremely thought-provoking and raises the possibility that an approach of trying to avoid peanuts may be the wrong thing to do,” says Robert Wood, an immunologist and pediatric allergist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
http://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVDec...
Meat provides additional protein, zinc, B-vitamins, and other nutrients which may be in short supply when the decrease in breast milk occurs. A recent study from Sweden suggests that when infants are given substantial amounts of cereal, it may lead to low concentrations of zinc and reduced calcium absorption (Persson 1998). Dr. Nancy Krebs has shared preliminary results from a large infant growth study suggesting that breastfed infants who received pureed or strained meat as a primary weaning food beginning at four to five months, grow at a slightly faster rate. Dr. Krebs’ premise is that inadequate protein or zinc from complementary foods may limit the growth of some breastfed infants during the weaning period. Both protein and zinc levels were consistently higher in the diets of the infants who received meat (Krebs 1998). Thus the custom of providing large amounts of cereal products and excluding meat products before seven months of age may not meet the nutritional needs of all breastfed infants.
Meat has also been recommended as an excellent source of iron in infancy. Heme iron (the form of iron found in meat) is better absorbed than iron from plant sources. In addition, the protein in meat helps the baby more easily absorb the iron from other foods. Two recent studies (Makrides 1998; Engelmann 1998) have examined iron status in breastfed infants who received meat earlier in the weaning period. These studies indicate that while there is not a measurable change in breastfed babies’ iron stores when they receive an increased amount of meat (or iron), the levels of hemoglobin circulating in the blood stream do increase when babies receive meat as one of their first foods.
http://www.westonaprice.org/children/nou...
Finally, respect the tiny, still-developing digestive system of your infant. Babies have limited enzyme production, which is necessary for the digestion of foods. In fact, it takes up to 28 months, just around the time when molar teeth are fully developed, for the big-gun carbohydrate enzymes (namely amylase) to fully kick into gear. Foods like cereals, grains and breads are very challenging for little ones to digest. Thus, these foods should be some of the last to be introduced. (One carbohydrate enzyme a baby’s small intestine does produce is lactase, for the digestion of lactose in milk.1)
[...]
Babies do produce functional enzymes (pepsin and proteolytic enzymes) and digestive juices (hydrochloric acid in the stomach) that work on proteins and fats.12 This makes perfect sense since the milk from a healthy mother has 50-60 percent of its energy as fat, which is critical for growth, energy and development.13 In addition, the cholesterol in human milk supplies an infant with close to six times the amount most adults consume from food.13 In some cultures, a new mother is encouraged to eat six to ten eggs a day and almost ten ounces of chicken and pork for at least a month after birth. This fat-rich diet ensures her breast milk will contain adequate healthy fats.14
Thus, a baby’s earliest solid foods should be mostly animal foods since his digestive system, although immature, is better equipped to supply enzymes for digestion of fats and proteins rather than carbohydrates.1 This explains why current research is pointing to meat (including nutrient-dense organ meat) as being a nourishing early weaning food.
“how do they decide that?”
wholesomebabyfood.com is full of old wives’ tales. Ignore it with confidence.
They make their recommendations based on “various medical authorities such as private pediatricians, the AAP, the AAFP and the WHO” With solid foods, there are a lot of different opinions out there, and the charts are just based on the most commonly held ones by drs. They encourage you to consult your pediatrician as well.
If you go to the page for the specific food, they will usually give the reasoning behind their recommendations. That is one of the things I like about this site. For example, at the melon page:
http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/melonbabyfoodrecipes.htm
You will read that melons can be acidic and can cause rashes in some babies, which is why the recommend waiting until slightly older to introduce them. Obviously not all babies will get a rash.
Meat is another area where there are different opinions. Most drs in the US say wait until 8-10 months, but most European drs say it is a good first food because of high iron content. SO as long as you inform yourself, you can judge for yourself what the risks are.
For the foods you mentioned:
grapes are usually considered a choking hazard, but are fine in a mesh feeder or as a puree
brocolli is hard to digest because it is woodier and tougher, also a gassy veggie. That is why they usually recommend the 8-10 range, so your baby has had practice with other foods first
Cherries have a thick skin that makes them hard to disgest – again, why it can be better to wait a bit
Kiwis are more acidic
Onions do not puree well and are better soft-cooked as finger food or in baby “meals”
With some foods, having them in a jar makes them easier for yhour baby – for example, cherries in baby food jars have probably been peeled. And processing at high temperature helps reduce the acidity of many foods. For example, tomatoes are acidic and therefore recommended for 10-12 months, but they are in jarred food aimed for younger babies, because the processing makes them less strong in that sense.
In most cases other than the one your dr mentioned (berries, honey, eggs, nuts, etc), the problem is not an allergy risk but the difficulty in digesting the food. The older your baby gets, the better his digestive system is. However, you know best what your baby has handled in the past and can handle now. Plus, in most cases, what you are risking is just more gas or some minor tummy trouble for a day. Acidic foods can also cause rashes around the mouth or bottom, but these also are not really a big health risk. Every baby does react differently and has more or less practice with solids by a given age, so the age recommendations are just a guide to what _most_ babies can handle at a given age. I would encourage you to read the individual food pages to find out _why_ that recommendation has made before you choose to give or not give your son a food. And if he has already had it and not shown any reactions, then (apart from the allergen foods), he is probably fine continuing to have it.
Because baby foods in jars are so highly processed, this can destroy the allergens.
Like strawberries, as the wholesomebabyfood site notes “Beech Nut commercial baby food states:
“Fresh strawberries can sometimes cause food reactions in babies. Cooked strawberries, on the other hand, usually do not. That’s because heat pasteurization destroys the substance responsible for reactions. So Beech-Nut includes strawberries – pasteurized for safety and good tolerance”
I have to wonder what else the heat pasteurization destroys – like nutrients too.
I was recommended the http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com site by my “crunchy” pediatrician and I like it a lot. I especially like where they break down the reasons why 6 months is :magical” and why 12 months is “magical” when feding baby certain foods. Like the above person said, sure you can feed your 6 month old baby broccoli but the odds of her immature tummy getting gas from it are higher than if you waited longer. Some foods just aren’t good for younger babies because of their digestion. HTH