Weaning pre term babies

[jellybrain]

Hve just been reading Annabel Karmel's Top 100 baby Purees and it says that preterm babies may need weaning earlier than those born after 37 weeks ( ihave never heard this theory before). Apparently its because they miss out on the minerals which are stored in the last month of pg. Does anyone have experience of this?
I am worried that weaning to early could case other problems, greater risk of choking, food allergies etc.

I wouldn't trust Annabel Karmel on this sort of thing - I think her recipes are good, but her advice on weaning ages are generally out of date. (She still suggests weaning from 4 months, doesn't she?)

How early? Earlier than 4 months, which is still considered early?

How many of those extra minerals would be present in baby rice/veg purees?

Hmm, I found two papers - one saying that early weaning improves the amount of iron and the baby's weight. (Early being before 6 months gestational corrected age, I think. Not sure how much before though.)

And another paper saying that, even if you are non-atopic (neither of you has excema, asthma etc), weaning before 6 months (GCA? I think?) increases the risk of excema at 1 year.

jellybrain, what I would do in this circumstance, I think, is wean when I was seeing the significant signs of being ready for weaning. So watch for when the baby can sit up well on his/her own, can effectively pick things up and put them in his/her mouth, etc etc. (Chewing on stuff is not a sign. Wanting more milk or being unsettled is not a sign.) If you want to follow the baby-led weaning techniques, that reduces the risk of choking etc, and lets food be introduced in a slower way.

How old is your baby? How early was he or she?

It is true that pre-term babies miss out on some vits&minerals that they should have got in the womb. We were given iron (Sytron) & vitamin drops (Dalivit) to give to ds for this reason. But we gave them from birth. We didn't wean till gestationally-corrected 6 months.