My first grandson was born at about 32 weeks, but was given his mother's 
milk exclusively from birth on (no fortifiers) and came home a month later, 
exclusively breastfeeding. The pediatrician had advised his mother to give 
him iron and Vitamin D drops but she opted not to give either one. Instead 
she had him tested for iron levels at each doctor's visit, and he was always 
fine. At six months (from birth) he was completely uninterested in solid 
foods, and his iron was still okay, so she continued on with exclusive 
breastfeeding. At nine months his iron was low, and he was finally showing 
some interest in solid foods, so she began giving him iron drops at that 
point (as well as solids). She gave him the drops for a month and he was 
retested and found to have normal iron again, so she stopped giving the 
drops at that point. He's six years old now.

I did have a mother in my LLL group whose seven month old (full-term) 
exclusively breastfed baby was assessed as having low iron. Since the baby 
was refusing solids, the mother decided to try an experiment - she increased 
the iron in her own diet. When she returned to the doctor a month later, the 
still exclusively breastfed baby now had normal iron levels. I know this is 
a case of one, but I found that interesting!

Teresa Pitman 

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