Please Contact The Baby Food Companies re 4 Month Labelling

[Liz]

I think these companies need to step up and do their part.

New mums are given new/updated information all the time. But we're bombarded with anecdotes of 'experienced' parents, be it our own parents or others just a few years ahead of us.

My MCHN's have dutifully handed out the leaflets that say to start solids after 6 months, but they never explain why.. and then you hear them giving their own opinion on introducing solids. to add to that, we are of the generation who say "well I turned out ok" and even parents with kids only a few years older say that they were told 4 months, and their kids are ok too.

I mentioned to the latest MCHN (I've gone through a few - don't like any of them LOL) that the paed said to wait until Kayla is corrected 6 months.. which makes her 7 1/2 months.. and she just rolled her eyes and said "ok, we'll talk about that when the time comes". No we wont.. coz I won't go back until well after that! LOL.

Just the fact that they've worked out that the actual gut of the baby is not mature enough to digest the food is enough for me.. but I never heard that from the nurses, if it weren't for BB and my own research, then I would be following recommendations from my mum, from older friends, and even food labels.. coz they wouldn't be allowed to put that on the label if it wasn't true.. would they???

Well done Chloe.

and wanting to drink too much milk more than ever recomended for such a young baby, the diatition actually said that the amount he wanted could affect his kidneys as they couldn't process so much,

Wow - I've never heard of that. Was that breastmilk? I've never heard of too much milk being detrimental to a baby.

[kristy J]

Wow - I've never heard of that. Was that breastmilk? I've never heard of too much milk being detrimental to a baby.

No formula. i know you cant really over BF.

[KatieRabbit]

Just adding my bit from kellymom about the people who recommend solids 6months+.
I thought people could use this info in any emails/letters:

The following organizations recommend that all babies be exclusively breastfed (no cereal, juice or any other foods) for the first 6 months of life (not the first 4-6 months):

World Health Organization
UNICEF
US Department of Health & Human Services
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Dietetic Association
Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
Royal Australian College of General Practitioners
Health Canada

[Janie]

Thanks for that info Deidre

I perused the baby food section of my local supermarket today, just to check who labels what correctly...........Bellamys actually label their rice cereal as 4m+........all their other products are 6m+, but it would appear that there is not one company who distributes through the large chain supermarkets who labels all of their baby food as suitable from 6m. And lets face it, the majority of people buying pre-prepared food for their bubs get it from the supermarket.

So it seems that there isn't really an alternative

[totalbabe77]

i have started a baby food business and our products should be in major supermarkets in the next few mths..we actually had some debate in our office about this point, and decided to err on the side of what's best for bubs and label all our single ingredient first foods as 6mths+..at our recent product launch at the pbc expo, we had so many parents saying "oh, so we can't start our bubs on this until 6 mths?What do we do before that?"..our dietitians were devastated at the lack of educated parents in the general community..we will actually have a large advertising campaign coming out later this year about the importance of starting solids at 6 mths will single ingredient 1st foods..i don't think there is enough information out there for parents..
Sorry for my rant..

[Trish]

Christie, good on you hun. I "think" I may have seen you out there.

Well done on spreading the word

[totalbabe77]

thanks trish..i don't want to step over the line of what i can/can't say, so don't want to say brand name etc..but we were all in yellow with a cute green caterpillar..i really hope we can make a difference to bubs..that really is our main focus.