Do you give your breastfed baby vitamin drops?

[haloflo]

Specifically vitamin D? My friend is a nutrition student and said that its recommended to give breastfed babies vitamin D drops. I asked the HV who said only sick or babies who don't eat well need them. Who is right? From googling it looks like the NHS line is to give them. If its so important then why has no one told me this until now then?!

DD is 10mo and a picture of health.

Never given them to DS. I bought some, don't know where they are though. He's still BFing at 2.5y, has a decent diet, and I take pregnacare, so I figured he was ok nutritionally. Plus he gets outside 6/7 days and drinks cows milk/eats fortified cereal so I can't see he needs it!

Too late for mine now but no I didn't. Bugger. Didn't know that I should.

Sardine, no one's every said DS should have them either, I bought the drops on a whim and then decided it was just another thing being marketed at me that we didn't really need!

I thought my french locum dr (in the uk) was bonkers when she asked me if
I had been giving my ds vitamin drops last year, and then corrected herself when realised I had switched to FF.
Can't believe this is necessary. I will not be giving any supplements to my ds. He gets light every day, and I will need to read a little more to be convinced that he is at risk of rickets.

I am going to ask my parents tomorrow. DoH advice is often aimed at lowest common denominator / it won't do an harm to take/avoid it (see no booze while pregnant etc) but if people have decent lifestyles it doesn't apply.

Will report back!

I am sure all our kids are fine BTW, so please no-one worry
Mine are certainly full of beans

A quarter of toddlers in the UK are deficient, according to an article I read in the bbc the other day. You only get rickets in very serious cases. There are a lot more subtle problems with deficiency. For example MS is linked to deficiency in vitamin d, and that's why it's more prevalent in Scotland.

Also said article also says for the fairest skin you need 13min in the midday sun in summer, without any sun protection and have a lot of skin exposed. You need more time if you are olive skinned or dark skinned.

SQ both of my children are between 6 months and five years. DD is still ebf at 27 weeks as she seems completely unconvinced by solid food, so this is a bit of a worry.

My HV told me that babies need the vitamin drops from 6 months old if bfed. I have them for DD but keep forgetting to give them every day.

Nope. Not convinced of need/risk either.

Chub my DD2 was the same. She was born in early July so I guess a similar type of birthday? She wasn't even sitting up unaided until she was 6 months or even a bit older (IIRC), she had to be propped for ages. I don't think I gave her much in the way of solid food until she sat better, unlike DD1 who was snaffling toast at 5months. I kind of played it by ear. DD2 is now 2.5 and perfectly fine.

If you are worried then eggs are a good first food and good source of vit D

If this new advice is DEFINITE then surely they should be telling people?

nope. they get fortified cereals and good varied diet. apart from the publicity, I've never been told to by any HV's of GP's.

It's not a made up thing. It is the current NHS advice to take supplements. Your HV or GP not saying anything could just be they aren't knowledgeable with babies and toddlers health issues.

My GP prescribed me a antihistamine that's a definite no no when I was pregnant. Lucky the pharmacist picked it up. When I went home I checked the NHS website and the pharmacist was right.

hmmm this is all a bit scatter gun from the HPCs...

On the other hand woot for something that us red heads are actually good for! Oh we don't do coping with pain, or anaesthetics working, and we bleed and bruise (oh yes childbirth is a mess for a ginger nut) but we kick ass at making vitamin D.

What I am still struggling to understand is why you would give the supplements to the baby and not the BFing mum?

Standard in France. I refused until DS was 6mo but he now has that and iron daily and we live in the tropics so plenty of sunlight around.

I live in Canada, standard here as well from birth.

As I understand it, breast feeding mums should also supplement as absorption of Vit D is quite poor There have been recent articles about Vit D deficiency & links with MS, SIDS and misdiagnosis of non-accidental injuries/fractures. I haven't had time to look for empirical evidence to support or refute this yet.
General feeling is that not enough health professionals are up to date with guidelines rather than guidelines being new. What the actual trigger for the recent publicity is, is anyone's guess.

Sleepywombat you are probably fine in Australia. I'm from nz and the advice is not to go out in the midday sun. Its totally different from the UK, You could most likely get the UVB at the cooler parts of the day.

It's a bit worrying to think a hv might not be up on baby and toddler health issues, considering that's meant to be their job. It would be a big like me not having heard if the civil procedure rules.

taking vitamin d when you are bf also helps guard against osteoperosis. bf leaches calcium from your bones when you are bf....yes it comes back again and even more comes back afterwards - but your bone density decreases during the bf process. i have gone from having osteopenia to severe osteoperosis so i have just started taking vit d, calcium etc for that reason also. i hope the bone strength comes back afterwards

Not just HV though - you would expect there to be a leaflet, have it mentioned in pregnancy pack somewhere, midwives to tell you etc etc

I suspect the reason I have not been advised about vit d for me or dd is because bfing rates are so low in this area. Still not good enough - I was bfing when handed over to the hv, she should have known about this. I feel a trip to baby clinic coming on.

On the ward after I gave birth they came and asked if I was BF. I think they have to check feeding method and if BF check you have successfully fed before they discharge you. That would have been a good time to mention it.

Also, if you're supposed to take folic acid when pg and vit D after then why isn't it available on the NHS? Supplements cost an arm and a leg, the ones I've seen anyway. Pregnacare and stuff like that.