Throughout several entries we could see last year various topics related to the supplementary feeding and given that many data explained in several entries were offered today we bring you a Summary guide of complementary feeding.
The objective is to comment on the most important of each food group to know when it might be appropriate to start offering them to babies based on the documentation offered by the main official bodies in terms of pediatric health (WHO, AEPED, ESPGHAN, the AEPAP, the EU, etc.).
Although it may seem strange, the more literature is consulted the harder it is to determine the ideal time to start offering a food, basically, because there are very few studies aimed at knowing when to start offering a food, which one goes first or at what time You must take.
It is not that they do not want to devote resources to it, it is that it does not make much sense to do a study with babies comparing a group of children who start eating banana at six months with another group of begins with the potato (studies that should be done for each food).
That's why this summary guide It is a set of recommendations that are not engraved in stone, but seem more or less logical for one reason or another (which I will explain).
Vegetables and vegetables
They have few calories and are recommended accompanied by other foods such as legumes, rice, potatoes and / or meat.
- The potato can start offering from six months
- Turnip and beet, for the amount of nitrates they contain, from twelve months
- The carrot also contains nitrates, but it also contains beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A. It is recommended after seven months, although some publications talk about six months offering a quarter of a carrot (many children literally get oranges when they eat a daily carrot).
- Spinach, cabbage and asparagus are also rich in nitrates and are therefore recommended after 12 months
- The rest of vegetables: onion, zucchini, leek, sweet potato, squash, celery, ... can be offered from six months.
Fruit
The fruit begins to be offered at six months, although if the mother begins to work at four months she could start offering the least allergenic (apple, pear, banana and perhaps orange, according to the pediatrician).
- Banana, apple and pear can be offered after six months.
- Orange and tangerine are more allergenic fruits and therefore some authors recommend them after 12 months. Others, on the other hand, comment that they can be offered after six months.
- Peach and apricot can cause allergies from the skin fluff. They are recommended after 12 months.
- Red fruits are also quite allergenic. Some people recommend that they not be offered until 12 months and other authors do not talk about them until 18 (I like this second figure more).
- Kiwi and pineapple, considered tropical fruits, are no longer so much because we have lived with them for a long time. In principle they are recommended after 12 months, but if the mother has been consuming them during her life more or less regularly, they can be offered at six months.
- The plum is a rosacea, cousin and apricot's cousin sister, however it has no hair like them and is therefore less allergenic. You can start offering from six months, especially if the baby has constipation.
- The rest of fruits (melon, watermelon, mango, papaya, ...) can be offered after six months.
Cereals
Gluten-free cereals are recommended after six months, although if the mother is going to start work at the end of the maternity leave they can be given after four months, as with the fruit.
- Rice, corn, tapioca (which is not really a cereal, but cassava flour), quinoa, amaranth and millet that are gluten-free cereals, can be offered after six months (although in South America, if a child is celiac is not usually given cassava).
- Cereals with gluten, and therefore gluten, should be offered between the sixth and seventh month, in small quantities each day, since it has been observed that offering gluten alongside breast milk is better tolerated and reduced by 40 % the chances of celiac disease.
And tomorrow more
There are so many foods from each group that we divide this entry into two parts. Tomorrow I will leave you the second part entitled: “Summary guide for complementary feeding (II).”
Photos | Flickr - skippyjon, superbez, Jeroen Kransen, jessicafm.
In Babies and more | Supplementary feed news
