Opps i gave DS spinach?!

This morning i read that you're not supposed to give babies under 12 months spinach.

The book says: "spinach, which contains oxalic acid, may also be a problem until later in the first year"

Over the last week my DS2 who is almost 8 months old has had this amongst other veg. I have small ice cube size blocks of it in the freezer that i was putting together with other things for meals.

Does anyone know oxalic acid and the effect it may have on my DS? He has actually been a bit 'off' lately but as to whether it has anything to do with the spinch i really couldn't tell. His nappies have been a bit looser in the last few days also.

Any info on this would be appreciated TIA :)

At his age his gut should be developed enough to handle it. Rafferty's make a baby food with broccoli, peas and spinach for babies 6mths + so I would assume that it would OK otherwise they wouldn't make it.

Ok wasn't aware of that one... I know he is on the closer end of being 12 months but still just gave me a bit of a terrible feeling when i read it. Thanks for the quick response :)

I probably wouldn't be giving him loads of it, but if it's just a bit mixed in with other veges then he should be fine.

Never heard that one! DD has also had spinach.

Never heard of it either so I googled it... I wouldn't be too worried about it if I were you. Here's a bit of what I found anyway: Was under a title of Oxalic Acid and Foods:

What Oxalic Acid Is
Oxalic acid is, of course, a chemical substance. At high concentrations, it is a dangerous poison, but such immediately toxic levels are not found in foodstuffs but rather in manufactures, such as some bleaches, some anti-rust products, and some metal cleaners (among other things). It is also a naturally occurring component of plants, and is found in relatively high levels in dark-green leafy foods (relatively high, though, is just that).

In the human body, ingested oxalic acid is not (so far as is known today) a useful nutrient; so, like all such unneeded components of diet, it is processed by the body to a convenient form and that byproduct is then excreted--in this case, in the urine. In the course of being processed by the body, oxalic acid combines with other substances to form various salts, called oxalates; usually, those salts are in solution (like salt in salt water or sugar in coffee), but if their concentration is high enough some may precipitate out in crystalline form. Such tiny crystals of these salts can be irritating to human tissue, especially to the stomach, the kidneys, and the bladder. It is commonly believed that oxalates contribute to the formation of kidney and bladder stones; one common nutrient with which oxalic acid combines is calcium, making the salt calcium oxalate, and calcium oxalate is found in kidney stones.



Assessing Oxalic-Acid Risks
Despite the plethora of articles on the web, there is little hard data--many references are either from inherently unreliable sources, or seem to be parroting material they scarcely understand. Here is what we have gleaned.



Toxicity
Sheer toxicity--actual poisoning--from ingested oxalic acid is wildly unlikely. The only foodstuff that contains oxalic acid at concentrations high enough to be an actual toxicity risk is the leaves (not the stalks, which is what one normally eats) of the rhubarb plant. For just about every other foodstuff, the risk--if any--is not immediate toxicity but a contribution to the development of oxalate crystals.



Stones and Gout
It is now generally believed that the normal human body can dispose of oxalic acid at even relatively high dietary quantities without trouble. Trouble comes only to those unfortunate enough to have one or another genetic condition that impairs, to a greater or lesser degree, their bodies' ability to process oxalic acid. (And sometimes stones and gout are not related to oxalic acid at all.) For those folk, oxalic acid is not the cause of their problems, but it is the raw material for it, and they do indeed need to regulate their intake of it, just as diabetics need to monitor their sugar intake despite sugar normally being a harmless substance.

(Gout is a painful condition caused by crystals, such as oxalates, being deposited in the extremities, typically the feet; it is thus clearly related to kidney- and bladder-stone conditions.)


Calcium Deprivation
Some have argued that by readily combining with calcium, oxalic acid in the diet reduces one's effective intake of dietary calcium. That is true, but the size of the effect is, for anyone getting decent nourishment, not meaningful. Even the conservative RDA for calcium is a gram or so (1000 mg) a day, and many believe that 1.5 to 2 g a day is better. (As one source put it: "While research studies confirm the ability of phytic acid and oxalic acid in foods to lower availability of calcium, the decrease in available calcium is relatively small.")

Nor need one be afraid to boost one's calcium intake. The belief that high calcium intake aggravates the formation of kidney or bladder stones has now been pretty well discarded, with studies showing that even intakes well above 2 g/day do not participate in stone formation in persons who do not otherwise have a stone problem. (Incidentally, getting decent amounts of potassium in one's diet will minimize the effects of calcium participation in stone formation for those who do have a problem; also, magnesium tends to combine with calcium in digestion, so magnesium can lower available calcium levels--which may be good or bad, depending on one's overall calcium status.)

I have never heard of avoiding spinach until a certain age. Oxalic acid can interfere with iron absoprtion, and iron is very, very important for developing brains - so my guess is that's where the recommendation you read or heard came from. However, I can't imagine it being a problem unless you are giving him lots of spinach and not much in the way of iron. If you are bfing he would almost certainly be getting enough iron.

Whether you are bfing or not, meat is now recommended as one of the first foods to introduce (because it is high in both iron and zinc which is also important for developing brains). For young babies with few or no teeth, it can be easiest to give steak to suck on, safe bones to chew on, or to scrape the meat into a pulp and add to other foods.

Thanks girls :)

Thanks Ozzihoffy for looking up that info and posting it.

I see from what has been said the amount i have given him wouldn't be enough to cause harm. I barely get a couple of teaspoons of anything into him so realisticly he's having a TINY bit. I just paniced i think :redface: Just don't want to do anything to harm my baby.

Thanks so much xo

Don't feel silly about it :hug: the way some things are worded at times can really scare you and make you doubt what you have done and we've all done that.

:-o I didn't know about spinach warning either!

Palmer loves Spinach! I assumed it would be good nutrient wise becuase she doesn't have meat. Oops.