>Dear Lactnet Friends:
>
>I wish that mothers were given the advice to hold their babies in their laps
>at the family table and let the babies decide when to start solids.


Nikki, I *so* agree. I have been thinking about this issue a lot, and 
in the day job, I am writing a feeding book and am coming up to the 
chap on solid foods.

I think the error is in trying to get a public health policy that 
states a date - a precise date on which all babies *must* do 
something. It is possible to come up with a research-based date, as 
WHO did, but this precision is an artefact of the question asked by 
the researchers ie 'can we draw a line below which it is 'bad' to 
give solids, and above which it is 'good' to give solids.  It doesn't 
match with common sense which 'knows' all babies cannot be 
shoe-horned into having identical needs and development.

I wonder if it is possible to have a public health policy that says this:

' all babies are individual, and breastfed babies who have been fed 
responsively, to cue, are well able to  show by their behaviour when 
they are interested in other foods and capable of managing them. 
Parents should be supported to observe their babies and respond to 
these signs of interest and capability, as these signs almost 
certainly reflect nutritional readiness. Parents should be supported 
to make eating a sociable and enjoyable event and process, and given 
guidance on suitable foods that the baby can enjoy and which enhance 
his health. The first steps towards a mixed diet of solid foods 
alongside breastfeeding are likely to take place some time around the 
age of 6 months.'

That's nice, I think!

This insistence on a 'cut off' date raises too many problems.

I came across the same 'cut off' mentality recently when I read an 
article about weight loss. I would quite like to lose a *very* 
stubborn 10 pounds which would take me back to a healthy, lean (but 
not thin) body I had 15 years ago. I was reading about fat 
accumulation round the waist and abdomen area and how this is 
unhealthy - more unhealthy than being overweight. The advice in the 
article was that I was 'at risk' if my waist measured more than 32 
inches (mine is 33 inches). Below 32 - fine. Above 32 - bad news. 
Again, an artefact of the research and handy as a public health 
stricture  but as a genuine distinction between 'good' and 'bad' it 
makes no sense. In real life, risk is graduated over a spectrum - and 
just like babies, we are all individuals.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK
-- 
http://www.heatherwelford.co.uk

http://heatherwelford.posterous.com

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