Diane, this is an anecdotal response to your question from some time ago.
I'd be very interested in anyone's comments.
My sister's second child, Emily, has been exclusively breastfed for over a
year as she was entirely uninterested in solids. (Well, if you don't count
paper.) At the age of 13 months she voluntarily ate part of a banana. She
did not then leap to usual 13 month old eating patterns but has been
proceeding more or less like a cautious 7 month old. She is now 14 months
old. She is well within normal developmental ranges, well nourished,
happy, healthy. No blood work, but no signs it's needed, either. Our
family has some food/environmental allergies, but mostly not severe ones.
I've seen a few other children grow and develop well on excl. bf. for over
a year, the most dramatic being a child who was almost completely bf for 18
months; in that case, there were very severe multiple food allergies
affecting both the mother and baby. People would say to her "oh you are so
dedicated to avoid all these foods so your baby can keep breastfeeding" and
she would explain that she was actually much healthier and happier herself
this way. (Of course the people who made these comments had not gotten
past the stage of believing formula is some magic otherworldly fluid that
contains no allergens or toxins, whereas mother's milk is scary stuff.)
I know that there's a theory that if a certain skill is not developed by a
certain age, it will never develop fully. So, for example, if
chewing/eating solids doesn't take place by age 1, it won't go well. And I
believe there's research suggesting nutritional status/development becomes
impaired if solids aren't introduced by 1 at the latest. I'd be interested
to see actual references on these, but I have some questions/doubts. (1)
there's the usual possibility that correlation has been confused
w/correlation. That is, I know some studies showed small babies were more
likely to be excl. bg. longer, but that needn't mean excl. bf. caused a
slowdown in development, it could be that weaning is based in part on speed
of growth, and mothers nurse small children longer. Also, if babies who
start solids after a year tend to have long-lasting oral problems or
excessive gagging or something (which incidentally are not evident in my
niece), that may be a reason they're cautious in starting solids, not a
result of delayed solids. Hey, it's *hard* to delay solids in children who
actually want them. (2) looking at things from a historical/biological
perspective, how likely is it that baby humans were routinely eating much
besides mother's milk from 6 months onwards, back before
agriculture/cooking made soft weaning foods easy to provide? I really
wonder if it wouldn't be more reasonable to recommend introducing solids
*during the second half-year*, rather than *at the half-year mark*.
Finally, I don't like that the doctor looked at "low normal" levels and
wanted to intervene. This is what I think of as the "moving threshold"
issue: you define normal as, say, values of between 10 and 20 for a given
factor. Under 10 is too low, and requires action. But then a value of 12
starts to look too close to the low end, so doctors start to recommend
remediation at that level. Soon they feel 13 is kind of close to 12, so
they suggest remediation at 13... A similar phenomenon can occur with
bilirubin levels, though of course there the high readings are the ones to
beware of.
If the child's levels are "low normal" then they are *normal*. They are
*not low*.
Personal opinion here, completely unsupported by medical expertise.
Elise
LLLL
Bath, NH
***********************************************
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|
