HV says 8 month exck-bf DS needs vitammin supplements ...

[Cratchit]

I asked a question in passing, almost for something to say really. STUPID! "Can I drop a feed now he's 8 months and eating meat and cheese etc," I asked innocently. She just looked at me, daggers, and said: "Are you still breastfeeding? Exclusively? What no formula at all? Well you need to give him a vitamin supplement because your breastmilk's not good enough now".

Distinct lack of bedside manner obviously but do i really need to give him ABIDEC or something?

I think the only thing in formula that isn't in breastmilk, nutritionally speaking, is loads of iron, which your baby will be getting from meat anyway.

Ask her to back her claims that your breastmilk "isn't good enough" with hard evidence from a nutritionist. Most Hv's will leave you alone if you demonstrate that you aren't ignorant enough to tolerate being pushed around. A lot are mad anyway!

honestly! Meat is good, also apricots (I find DD enjoys dried ones better than mushed up fresh ones). Not that I am excl-bfing as DD had 6-7oz of formula, but it was still a concern of mine.

Something that annoyed me reading Gina Ford's info on weaning (link from Hunker on GF thread recently) was that she stated that a baby's iron stores had depleted by 6m. I thought it was just that they started to deplete?!!

Formula hasn't been around for that long - if bf was not good enough the human race would have died out.

No you don't need to give anything else - human milk perfect for humans, and it's clever and knows to change as your baby gets older.

Not good enough indeed - complain!

Cheeky cow if my HV dared tell me my milk wasn't 'good enough' I would complain to the practice. Like Colditz says, get her to substantiate her claims fgs.

My dd2 is approaching 8 months next week. She is eating 3 meals a day, mainly vegetables with fish or chicken. She hasn't even had red meat, cheese or eggs yet, because I stock piled so much fish and chicken in the freezer a couple weeks ago! Dd2 is eating at least 1 yoghurt a day though and is still only taking breastmilk as a fluid. Wont touch a bottle and thinks her water cup is a toy, never gets anything out of it. I have no concerns about her 'not getting enough' of anything.

I really think what your HV said to you today was incredibly rude and insulting. Complain!

cratchit, unless you and baby are non-Caucasian, NO need to supplement IMO if you give your baby a balanced diet of solids past 6 months.

I say this because experts recommend that non-Caucasians living in cold, dark climates like the UK, supp. their bf babies with vit. D. The best source of vit. D is sunlight and darker skinned mothers and babies tend to need more sunlight than fair skinned ones. For example I read that in Canada excl. bf babies of darker skinned mothers are given vit. D supps by the health service there. For some reason this is not done in the UK.

I went through a period of doubt at 6 months because in various other countries vit. supps. are recommended for bf babies. I wondered why the NHS doesn't do this, asked GP and HV and got silly replies, so did my own research.

See kellymom.com and la leche league website which give details of scientific research.

I am white Caucasian and so is my baby (excl. bf until he was 6 months and still bf at 20 months). Decided after doing my own research that supps. are not necessary because I give him the natural stuff instead. The two main things that breastmilk will run low on past 6 months are:

1. iron and zinc - I started him on meat very early on at around 7 months (as recommended by research on LLL website) - I still give him a bit of chicken or lamb every day

1. vit. D - I make sure he gets plenty of natural sunlight - even when he was a tiny baby I would take his trousers off and take him out into the garden for 20 mins. of direct sunlight PER WEEK. You have to weight this against the risk of sunburn etc, but look at it another way, 3 mins. of direct sunlight is recommended (i.e. 20 mins. per week), 3 mins. is very unlike to cause a sunburn. Apparently 20 mins. per week is all that is required to absorb enough vit. D for a baby or toddler.

Of course vit. D plus other vits. and iron are all added to formulas, but as always formula is a very poor substitute for mother's milk and the benefits of bf past 6 months (and for as long as you wish) far outweigh the reduction in certain elements of bm past 6 months. In fact calcium and vit. D and iron which exist in bm are far better absorbed by the baby's gut than artificial supps.

Other vits. like A, C and E can easily be given in the babies natural food.

Good luck whatever you decide !

Thank you all. I'm normally so feisty with the "outside world" but I was honestly so shocked I was kind of dumbfounded. I wanted to try and be careful as Ds was v poorly and hospitalised within days of being born, so before I deprived him of his much needed ABIDEC thought I'd just double, double check with some kind, sensible MNetters. My GP is normally lovely about bfing, telling DS how lucky he is blah, but the HV actually made me feel guilty for b-fing. She didn't even ask about his weight or anything. Grrr.

I had exactly the same comment from my HV at my dd's 8 month check. Never gave dd any supplements and was very annoyed at HV's attitude to my bf dd. dh was fuming! Got rid of the smidgen of respect I had left for her.

By the title, I assumed your child was only having breastmilk and no solids at 8 months, in which case I'd expect some flak from an HV (but really, your child would be fine). But if your kid is eating solids well, why on earth would he need vitamins? Gah, some HVs.

koolcat that is fascinating - i had wondered why hv only asking some mothers whether they were using vitamins.

and the 20 mins thing v interesting too - dp and mum are keen to rush ds out into sunshine at every opp, glad to have a bit of ammo against this weirdness.

Wow Koolkat. Now that's my kind of research. Thanks for that. I'd researched a bit, tho not as much as you, and was only considering dropping a feed because I'd successfully introduced meat and was working on dairy and other proteins. I've tried him on formula, for my own selfish reasons, and it hasn't worked so have abandoned for the time being, but am now putting it into his breakfast cereal as expressing is driving me bonkers.

DH is fuming and since I've told him about all the posts here he's now dying to complain. Maybe we'll even brave it...

It still annoys my dh to think about it and my dd is 4 now!

Wish we had complained then though, I think we were just so shocked.

She never spoke to me like that with ds though, learnt to answer her back by then .

Got this from the NCT website which has the current UK guidelines. Your HV may have been incredibly rude in the way she said it, but she was actually right:

The Department of Health recommends that women who are breastfeeding should take a supplement of vitamin D. This is partly because levels of sunshine in the UK do not create sufficient vitamin D in the skin in the winter. Very few women have insufficient vitamin D in their breastmilk, but it is important to avoid deficiencies when the baby's bones are growing fast.
For the same reason, government guidelines state that breastfed babies above the age of six months should take vitamin drops as a nutritional safety net. The drops contain vitamins A, D and C and are suitable for vegetarians. Formula-fed babies should not be given a vitamin supplement because formula milk already has added vitamins and too many of the fat-soluble vitamins - A and D - can cause serious health problems.

Hi McMudda (I'm on the Juney thread too) - Oh . Not sure what to do about that. Maybe I should ...Baby shouting. have to go.

Cratchit - don't panic too much. I give them to dd when I remember - maybe every other day? But the NCT (who are pretty good when it comes to baby feeding advice) do say it's only a "nutritional safety net" so it doesn't seem set in stone. But I guess it doesn't do any harm to give them a dose IYSWIM.

My baby's started shouting too

aaahhh, this must be reason no.638 for giving formula. dh once asked if hvs were on the books of formula companies.

cratchit - please tell your HV how wrong she is getting it. Official guidance is for non-formula fed babies over 6 mths to have Vit D supps - not because breastmilk is deficient (as if.....) but because modern day lifestyles are, and we don't get outside the way we used to. This may be esp. important for people with black or brown skins who need to be outside rather more as black or brown skin needs more light to make enough Vit D.

Fornula is already supplemented with Vit D - read the packs.

Babies who get outside without being totally wrapped up on most days don't need Vit D.

Shame so many HVs are just not aware of the real facts :(

Those are the government guidelines but I have heard NCT b/f counselloras state that taking the baaby outside for 20 mins of sunlight per day is a better alternative.

julie - agreed about the sunshine thing. But in fact it's much less than 20 mins. per day. It is 20 mins. PER WEEK, so only about 3 mins. per day.

Vit. D gets absorbed really well through sunshine and it also gets stored very well so even on days that there is no sun (like here in London most days now) if the baby received a bit of exposure to sunlight on the days that were sunny and throughout the summer, he would be absolutely fine.

The 20 mins. per week is I think a Finnish study ? Finnland is obviously very cold and dark for most of the year so I can see why they would be very concerned about vit. D deficiency.

Vit. D from the sun (and mother's milk) is absorbed better by the baby than the artificial drops plus too much vit. D taken orally is very very toxic.

As I said earlier it is possible to give the baby all he needs the natural way. I read one story about an American woman whose baby became iron deficient past 6 months. They told her to give the baby iron drops, but instead she started giving her baby a bit of meat every day. Within a very short time when they did a blood test on the baby again, her iron levels had reached an acceptable level and the mother decided against giving iron drops.

A bit of meat or other iron-rich food every day will do the trick. I give my son broccoli and spinach, both iron rich. So if you are a veggie you can still give iron through other sources other than meat.

Sorry, don't want to push my luck, but I feel quite strongly about not putting anything artificial into my baby's gut unless it is medically necessary which is why I advocate the natural way !

Well neither of my kids were anaemic and my ds never had formula and dd only had it at 16 mths (she was low weight gain) after stopping brestfeeding.
Hole in arse, talking through she is

Piffle yoda

This may be a question too specific to answer, in which case I'll have killed another thread...

This 3 minutes per day outdoors. Are we talking arms, legs etc? Or will, say, an hour of face do??

Now understand the 'Piffle yoda' comment, but having started the thread the wrong way, I was dead confused for a while there.

I aim to confuse I do

We're living in France at the moment, and you get given a prescription vit d drops as standard. We didn't really want to give them to ds (maybe being a bit precious as he was excl bfed until 5.5 months) so get involved in an embarrassing discussion abuot whether we've run out every time we take him for a jab (I wish I knew roughly how long one thing of vit d is supposed to last).

There's pretty much no support for breastfeeding here. When ds was 5 months, the doctor was insistent that ds had to be given vegetables as my milk was too rich. Go figure.

[hi junie folk btw]

why does an 8 month old need formula?
i thought you werent giving him any solids. if that was the case, then, vitamins would be an idea. but otherwise their is no need whatsoever to give anything artificail.

I just went and asked the pharmacist at our local boots branch and she said, yes they are an option, but not manditory. That they won't do any harm, but aren't necessary. She did ask if there was any reason I was asking, eg: had dd been frequently ill, but when I said no, she was pretty reassuring that they weren't required, espcially as she was weaning well and getting a good mix of veg and protein.