exclusively breastfeeding till age one

[jasper]

Hi all, it's not that I am thinking of doing this or anything, but I keep reading about exclusive bf till age one, on (mostly american) websites.
The advice I have been given is solids should be introduced between 4 and 6 months.
I have never heard of anyone giving solids later than this through choice,(except on these websites) although I have heard of a few babies who were just not interested in anything but breastmilk untill they were well over 6 months with no ill effects, even if this was not the mother's choice.
Do any of you have any experience, information, or opinions?

enid, it sounds like a myth. i don't think there is any m*s in milk organic or not.

Been doing a bit of research and it seems to be a myth that Japanese have lower osteoporosis rates - at least 1/3 of all Japanese women 70 or over have it - but what they do have is fewer fractures. This is perhaps because they squat more - eating at lower tables etc - so develop stronger hip and leg muscles so have better balance and fall less. Falls are strongly associated with weak muscles and falls are how osteoporosis is usually diagnosed. Green veg are not, I believe, a good available source of calcium (v hard to get calcium out of spinach, for example). Milk is much, much better. However, good news is that b/f does not increase osteoporosis even though it uses up lots of calcium and your body makes up the loss later.

On the calcium debate ,.... we absorb calcium from our diets as we need it. Healthy adults abosrb 20 to 30%. But during pregnancy or bone formation (so childhood) it can be up to 75%.
Aloha : what do you mean when you say this ?
v hard to get calcium out of spinach, for example

On the Calcium debate:
there was a good article about this in the New Scientist a while back. It's believed that that high phosphorous foods (hard CHEESES being the classic example) actually PROMOTE Osteoporosis. And people in cultures who eat lots of dairy products often have much higher rates of osteoporosis than non-dairy consuming cultures. The phosphorosis in the cheese effectively leaches calcium from our bones, and other cow's milk products are only so-so on that front. Grains are pretty bad, too, but can be counter-balanced by eating lots of fruit and veg.

I'm not out to start another argument... but I'm strongly against vitamin supplements. What is food for if it doesn't nourish you?
If in doubt... eat more vegetables. -j

SofiaAmes, bioavailability of calcium from spinach is virtually nil, as spinach is full of oxalates which bind with calcium and prevent absorption. Calcium from legumes (eg peas and beans) is roughly half as available as that from milk. There is a lot of very good research that calcium intake - from whatever source - does prevent fractures.
Good news for breastfeeders is that calcium in breast milk is more bioavailable than than in formula.

Zebra, why are you so against supplements? I agree that good food is the most important thing, but I think supplements are very useful indeed. I take them and give them to my son. Did you take folic acid when pregnant?

You could eat veg until you were sick but you would be very unlikely to get enough folic acid to prevent spina bifida and cleft palate. It's also near impossible to get enough vitamin E to have a beneficial effect on the heart. There is a great deal of research on supplementation, much of it pretty convincing. Of course, it's no subsitute for good food, which is why it is called a supplement!

aloha, i never thought you could get calcium from spinach (or iron for that matter a la popeye). I am a big believer in milk. (I am impressed by your knowledge and understanding of nutrition. Do you have a background in science?) You are absolutely right about supplements being essential. As I mentioned in another thread, my father is one of the world's experts on nutrition (particularly in relation to cancer) and he nags me daily to "take my vitamins" and give vitamins to my son. He even insisted on my husband taking vitamins before providing the sperm to impregnate me.
zebra, in an ideal world we would all eat lots of fruits and veggies, but in reality not only do only some very small proportion of the population consume the minimum 5 servings a day that is recommended, but in the usa (and the uk too i think) some large percentage of poor children can be classified as malnourished by the standards used to measure the 3rd world population. This not only affects their immediate health, but their longterm health, intelligence and the health of their offspring. All of this could be prevented by supplementing foods regularly consumed by the general population (ie mcdonalds hamburgers, coke, biscuits, crisps, sweets etc.) ok lecture done.

Ah, Sofia, I thought that was an odd question from you. No, I don't, but I do have an obsession with nutrion/health and write about it for various publications. An ex-boyfriend also used to work in the vitamin industry and I was mightily impressed with the ethical nature of his work and the care put into safe supplementation. I am also passionate about debunking myths - as you may have noticed.. so many articles in mags/papers just repeat old received notions without going back to the source material to really see what the truth is.

Aloha, have you ever interviewed my father (bruce ames)? I'm sure he would be thrilled to talk to someone as articulate and well informed as you seem to be.

Sofia, I may very well take you up on that. What is so wonderful about my job is the ability it gives you to talk to such fantastic people. Right now I'm researching the effect of hormones on sex life (which as b/f mother is v depressing but the prolactin connection explains a lot about my personal life right now!) What is your father working on at the moment? I have to admit, I keyed in nutrition and Ames into Google to try and find your father when you first mentioned him on another thread...

yes, bfing and sex don't seem to go together...see the sex survey....
My father is currently working on among other things the causes of aging. They have come up with a compound that when fed to old rats and mice makes them look and act like young rats and mice. They've done some human clinical trials which look promising. It's an enzyme (i think) that works on the mitochodria.
They've also found a way for asians to get drunk without a hangover (a genetic deficiency common in asians causes strong reactions to alcohol).

Back to supplements & why I don't like 'em:
I know people like to take them as insurance policies. But I dislike the idea that we "should* all try to them on a daily, ordinary basis. Folic acid in pregnancy is not an ordinary thing, nor is a little iron supplementation for the kids when you have a lead-paint problem in the house (like we do). I took Vit. B6 for morning sickness & to before that for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Though I see it more as a drug than as a vitamin in those cases.

It goes back to what I said -- food is there to nourish you. The solution to poor nutritional intake is to fix the food, not pop a pill.

I meet a lot people who rely on their vitamin pills instead of keeping to a good diet. My favourite was my American step-sister who railed against how bad the British diet was. Then her husband pulled out their pills and offered some to us saying how healthy these pills had made them. My boyfriend had to walk out of the room to stop from laughing in their faces.

My own very strong hunch is that we in the west have the highest vitamin&mineral content diets now that any humans have ever had in human history, too. We forget how really appaling human diets were for most of recorded history. But sometimes it backfires, because our diets are easily put out of balance by massive vitamin infusions. For example, high iron supplements can lead to zinc deficiency.

Man, i cannot keep up with how quickly these threads move on! So sorry if this comes late late late....

ps:

back to Folic Acid and Aloha saying a supplement is such a good thing in pregnancy:

Anyone recall the study ... last year? Swedish, me thinks? That found that folic acid supplements promote the likelihood of twin and others multiples pregnancies. And with the complications that brings, such as increased risk of cerebal palsy, it may be a very bad idea to prescribe folic acid supplements to all pregnant women. The study was quite concerned about the way folic acid is routinely added to certain food stuffs (breakfast cereals, flour) in certain countries (Britain, USA).

The researchers were arguing instead for targetted folic acid supplementation to vulnerable groups. Because from a public health policy standpoint, mass dosing of folic acid to the population looked like it would produce worse outcomes than the former incidence of spinal bifuda (at least for Swedes).

How fascinating Sofia! Has he got a product that lets me get drunk without a hangover? I'd pay good money....
Zebra, that study was an initial & unique study which needs more research. The link between spina bifida & cleft palate and folic acid is very clear and established. I know what risk I would rather take. Also I think it is worthwhile thinking about the difference between a correlation and a causal relationship in research. Yes, in this study it was found that women who took folic acid had a slightly raised incidence of twin pregancies. That is NOT the same as saying folic acid causes twin pregnancies (this finding puzzled researchers who could find no reason why this should be). It is probably more likely that the women who took folic acid (this was a self-selected group, not a random clinical trial, I believe) were more educated, slightly wealthier women having babies later in life (this tends to be the case with folic acid supplementation, which is the main argument for food supplementation, as poor people have disproportionately more babies with spina bifida). It is well known that the likelihood of twins rises with age, so this could very well be - and is likely to be - for the reason between the link beween folic acid and twin pregnancies. I would be very interested to see more research done on this, but it would be very dangerous to dissuade anyone from taking folic acid supplements on the basis of this one study compared to the huge number of large scale trials on neural tube defects. Also, why do you think folic acid is such a unique nutrient? If folic acid supplementation can prevent catastrophic birth defects, why do you think that there may not be many other health benefits of vitamin and mineral supplementation? Calcium supplements have a very positive effect on lowering blood cholesterol, for example, and has been proven to reduce fractures in older people. Vitamin E does reduce heart attacks. I disagree that we have an especially nutrient rich diet today. Soil levels of many minerals (esp selenium) are very low, and we eat on the whole, a worse diet than we did during the war years, when we consumed less fat and more fruit and vegetables. It isn't easy for everyone to eat as well as they should. I do try to get my five a day, but when I was dealing with a newborn I remember a day when all I had was rich tea biscuits... and elderly people with poor appetites can rarely eat enough to get enough variety in their diet.

I wrote the last post off the top of my head but have just done a bit of research. The Swedish study has been discredited since its publication. Numerous other studies have found no link between folic acid and twin pregnancies. However, taking folic acid reduces the risk of spina bifida by 72% and has protective effects against a whole range of birth defects (one study even suggested it may help prevent Down syndrome). less than one woman in 1000 gets enough folic acid in her diet to have this effect, and say scientists, would have to have a very bizarre diet to achieve the recommended levels (probably so bizarre that she would go short of other nutrients).

I wrote the last post off the top of my head but have just done a bit of research. The Swedish study has been discredited since its publication. Numerous other studies have found no link between folic acid and twin pregnancies. However, taking folic acid reduces the risk of spina bifida by 72% and has protective effects against a whole range of birth defects (one study even suggested it may help prevent Down syndrome). less than one woman in 1000 gets enough folic acid in her diet to have this effect, and say scientists, would have to have a very bizarre diet to achieve the recommended levels (probably so bizarre that she would go short of other nutrients).

Well into my pregnancy in Sweden and have not been advised to take folic acid but do get questioned regularly about whether I am taking my vitamins.

oh rats! I wrote a whole long post and then my computer crashed!!! Anyway, the gist of it was:
zebra, you may eat a balanced diet, but something like 90% of the usa and uk don't. I think it is naive to think that they will eat well, just because someone tells them to. (look at how many people smoke despite knowing that it is killing them). Most vitamins cannot be overdosed and it is better to be safe than sorry and supplement the population as a whole whenever possible.
aloha, I am an architect. I used to be in the music business and also have a degree in economics with a minor in biology and an mba in marketing....

I like the article because it points out that the issues involved with vitamin supplements are not simple "good" vs. "bad".

I suspect most people reading this, though, have it in their power to eat very good quality food. And a good diet will always seem a far preferable course of action to me for those that can achieve it (good diet, that is) than popping pills. For one thing, food is enjoyable to eat and vits are not :-).

A good quality diet doesn't have to be perfect, either.

Anyone remember the joke....
Old man in the pub boasting,
"I'll be 100 years old tomorrow! And do you want to know why? I never drank, never smoked, don't stay up late, and don't go out with loose women!"

Asks someone else,
"So how will you be celebrating tomorrow??"

With a 7 week old DS, all I ate yesterday were two bowls of Sultana Bran and a couple of bagels coated in chocolate spread - so although I know what a good diet should be, it's just not happening at the moment - surely I can't be the only one??!!

I do usually eat some kind of evening meal, but DS went off to sleep yesterday at 7.30pm and so did I - so given the choice between food or sleep - I chose sleep!!!

Kyliebump, you are definitely not the only one. I took vitamins for the first few months after I had my ds as I just didn't have the energy to cook properly and hadn't yet trained my dh to cook good italian food. I think I've got him ready for this birth though...