According to the deputy director of Unicef’s UK Baby Friendly Initiative, Gill Rapley, pureed baby food is both “unnatural and unnecessary” and it might cause babies to have health problems later in life. Apparently, this statement is made in her personal capacity as the founder of a feeding programme, Baby-Led Weaning.
She feels that babies should just be fed with breast or formula milk for the first six months and then slowly weaned onto solids. This would allow parents to control how much they eat and prevent babies from being picky about food. She suggests that babies be allowed to eat solid pieces of food which they can chew at about 6 months old.
Well, I think I’ve to dispute her point of view as it really depends on the baby and every baby will be different. For Matthew, he was on a mixture of pureed food, either bottled or home-made, when he was about 4 months old. This included fish porridge, fruits and vegetables. And he slowly progressed to real solids when he was about 10-12 months old. Am not sure about what health problems he might have in future, but he is definitely not picky with food. I think he’s a lot less picky than his mummy and daddy. Of course, if given the choice, he’ll rather eat things he likes to eat. So, I’m not entirely certain if the programme will really be beneficial to babies.
Other experts have provided their comments in the article as well.
(via BBC News)
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