For many years, I worked almost exclusively with an under-served inner
city population from varied cultural backgrounds and we struggled to
keep babies exclusively bf for any length of time. Moms who were recent
immigrants often ate traditional diets that were pretty free of the
processed crap that Americans tend to eat. Most of our other moms ate
the SAD, in varying degrees of awfulness. Any understanding of "good
nutrition" was usually completely inaccurate and this was equally true
for the moms in our program who had interactions with the clinic
dieticians. AIM aside, first foods were often extremely nutrient-poor,
laden with sugar and would quickly replace breastfeeding.

I now work almost exclusively with an upper middle class population of
a typically homogeneous cultural background. Again, exclusivity of
feeding at breast is rare and early solids are all too common (even
often recommended by peds routinely). Again, moms have very poor, and
IMO, dangerous misinformation about nutrition and their own diets are
often appalling. First foods tend to be expensive "high end" baby foods
given between 4-6 months. Peds are not advocating a 6 mos policy and
when one reads mainstream mothering boards, the discussion around solid
foods reflects absolutely no awareness of the "middle of the first
year" concept. Everyone has an excuse as to why her baby with a "big"
appetite needed solid foods so soon (which they do not think of as
soon). Or, with reflux being all the rage, why her baby needed rice
cereal in a bottle.

I think that until we have a significant population of exclusively bf
babies and we have peds who are educated about feeding babies, we will
continue to see babies in the US receiving poor quality foods from an
early age. We can all debate the developmental need for solids before 6
months (which, like the need for cesareans, I think is quite rare), but
until Jay Gordon clones himself (BTW, Jay you can do that w/o
labeling!! thanks to the FDA), I am far more concerned with normalizing
exclusive bf'ing, withholding solids AND educating parents about their
choices of weaning foods. Right now, we may be able to name those rare
babies who thrived with early solids, but except among LLL-educated
folks, the discussion rarely takes that direction. Babies are being
routinely fed absolutely awful "food" from very early ages and parents
AND peds have no idea why this is a problem. I think the avg American
two-year old pretty much lives on some version of chicken nuggets,
french fries, goldfish (empty-calorie) crackers, macaroni and cheese
and string cheese (if you don't know--you don't want to) , no matter
how well-educated his parents may be. Maybe fruit juice or some fruit.
Notice the absence of vegetables?

Taking a look down the cascade, this can only create a false sense of
"normal" among both parents and peds who have may have no idea what a
healthy child looks like. It has become normal for kids to have chronic
ear infections, respiratory diseases, pre-asthma, eczema, gastric
problems, rashes, bahaviour problems, obesity (they're just "big kids")
and that lovely "allergy look" that so many little ones seem to have.
IMO, the issue of feeding solids is a far-reaching issue with
implications for a lifetime of wellness--or not.

Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA
Intuitive Parenting Network LLC




________________________________________________________________________
More new features than ever.  Check out the new AOL Mail ! -
http://webmail.aol.com



________________________________________________________________________
More new features than ever.  Check out the new AOL Mail ! - 
http://webmail.aol.com

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome