New Research On Delaying Solids and Allergies
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More confusing research results.
Parents, especially Moms, must be so wary of “expert advice” by now. I know I am. What with all the conflicting advice I get, I may as well hole up in a cave, raise my daughter the way I want and say phooey! to any expert advice.
New research published in the the journal Pediatrics, shows the results of research conducted by German scientists. The research followed 2073 children with a 6 year follow-up and found no appreciably great difference in childhood allergies among those fed solids before 4 months. This seems to be contrary to advice by The World Health Organization (WHO), and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) who recommend exclusively breastfeeding for the first 6 months to prevent allergies later in life like asthma, and food allergies.
This affects me greatly because I am beginning to feed my 4.5 month-old baby solids. I happen to personally know a mom who started feeding her child solids at age 3 months and I remember the disapproval I felt when I learned this. Her tactic was not what was recommended by “experts”. However, I followed her bits of wisdom when she said that she’s not one who just says whatever experts say to do; that she evaluates her child herself and makes decision based on her own experience and intuition. I could tell my baby was very interested in eating from the spoon, she seemed constantly hungry, and she had good head control already. So I ignored the advice of waiting until 6 months to introduce solids, BUT with a guilty feeling in the back of my mind remembering all the warnings of my child developing allergy.
The article does say that those babies who weren’t introduced to solids before 4 months did have less occurrence of eczema. However, the article does not conclude that delaying solids prevented eczema.
The article also does not go as far as saying to ignore the recommendations of WHO and AAP.
In my opinion, experts aren’t always experts; let your child be your guide.
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