Do not add supplementary food early will cause malnutrition in babies?

In fact, the purpose of starting to add supplementary food to the baby is not to supplement nutrition, but to train the baby to get used to another way of eating. At the beginning of adding complementary foods, only a small spoonful of single food (such as banana or baby rice noodles) was fed a day, and the mother observed whether the baby accepted it and whether it was allergic. If the baby refuses, he must stop immediately, wait a while, and try again. If the baby accepts it and is not allergic, you can start to add a small amount of another food after a few days after adding a small amount of it.

If you start to add complementary foods to your baby, the focus is not on nutrition, but the baby has a big appetite. It is no longer sufficient to rely solely on breast milk, and additional food is needed. Within one year of age, the main source of nutrition for the baby is breast milk, not complementary food.

After adding complementary food, the baby should be weaned.

Some brochures refer to complementary foods as "weaning foods" and suggest that mothers replace breast milk with complementary foods. This is incorrect information. Complementary food is called "complementary" food precisely because it is a food that assists breast milk and is by no means a replacement.

Before a baby is one year old, breast milk is still the main source of food and nutrition, especially the main source of vitamins is breast milk, not complementary food. The absorption of breast milk and complementary foods by the baby's body is very different: the nutrients in breast milk are basically completely absorbed, but many nutrients in complementary foods are not fully absorbed. The most typical is the absorption of iron: although the iron content in breast milk is low, it can meet the needs of the child, and the absorption rate is as high as 75%; no matter how solid food is added to fortified iron, the absorption rate is only 4%, and milk will let you Iron in the baby's body is lost through feces.

Each mother's milk is specially designed for her baby, and will change as the baby grows to meet the different needs of the baby at different times. For example, when the baby's body is invaded by a new germ or virus, the new enemy will be transferred to the mother's body by sucking milk. The mother's body will immediately produce immune globulin based on the "enemy situation", and then transmit it to the baby through the milk to build a barrier in the baby's body to protect the child from infection.

Therefore, while adding complementary foods, the daily breast milk intake should be maintained, not reduced, let alone canceled.