It's not rocket science - "it may cause harm to wean early, it does no harm to leave it till 6m" - WHY do people still want to shovel baby rice in at 12 weeks (or earlier)?

[hunkermunker]

I have come up with some ideas as to why people wean early:

they have competitive baby syndrome and are annoyed someone else's baby rolled first, so they want to get theirs onto steak and chips via baby rice and one fruit or veg a week for months

Well, an idea. Any more?

No, as Hunker has explained earlier in the thread, it's not about what was done in the past but about now, ie if you know the guideline is 6 months, and you know roughly why that is, why would you wean at 12 weeks or earlier?

So far, there hasn't been an answer from anyone doing it...

The diet thing is way more complicated than the rules though anyway- as the "danger" of weaning early will depend what you wean onto and your particular individual susceptibilities. For suscpetible children cows milk and/or gluten may be potential triggers for type 1 diabetes for example, although unfortunatley hard to pick out the susceptible children. DS3 (think the guidelines were 6 months when he was small) was weaned at 5months something - really have no recollection exactly when, onto some rice slushy stuff- did it because he seemed pretty hungry. However aged over 2 he doesn't have gluten (never has), and only has limited cows milk- because of particular issues in our family. Personally would rather try and do wha is best for our family than apply some overall rules designed for populations. I thought avoiding gluten was more of an issue for us, than worrying about some rice sludge and the odd squished pear before 6 months.

not sure the evidence is all that clear anyway

this one says DELAYING exposure to wheat after 6 months increases the risk of allergy (which is contrary to most of the stuff I've read- luckily we're not avoiding for purposes of allergy).

this 2007 paper deals specificially with the WHO recommendations and answers a few queries I had (e.g. that there is no data for formula fed infants, that the recommendations may not apply to developed countries as much as developing etc etc.

Think there are still many questions tbh.

this one for example says
The WHO 2001 global recommendation is a one size fits all approach to weaning, an approach which may not take sufficient account of the special needs of some infants and fails to allow for the different problems encountered in the industrialised nations compared with economically developing countries. For the healthy normal birth weight full term infant born in an industrialised country, current research supports the benefit of exclusive breast milk feeding until 4?6 months. Evidence of harm through introducing solid food to these infants earlier than this is weak. Infants should be managed individually according to their needs.

And notice that the last paper I've quoted from talks about breastfeeding. Presumably if you're formula feeding then introducing some rice slush is going to make even less difference.

Apart from the last paper- I specifically chose to read 2006 and later papers (i.e the most up to date). I just put weaning 6 months into gooogle scholar- and looked at what came up- i.e. I didn't search out papers that raised questions concerning the validity of the WHO approach. Really don't have must opinion other than I'm not keen (at an individual level) on one size fits all rules.

I agree with Noddy. What's the point of going over and over this? Hunker - were you bored last night?

I wonder if a lot of people who wean earlier than 6 months now are not first time mums, or are taking advise from their own parents maybe? Just thinking that people are often more relaxed with sunsequent children and possibly think (not syaing it is right BTW) that if 16 weeks was fine for child #1, why not child #2. Just a thought.

Gess, I've previously read all 4 of those sources you quote, and I was a bit underwhelmed at the contribution to the debate.

1. Zutavern et al. Found no evidence that delayed weaning decreased allergy, but got bogged down in reverse causality problems as is usual in this kind of observational study.

2. Poole et al: even more methodological problems - the problems with this study are nicely summarised here . I think you just can't conclude anything from what they present - either for or against.

3. Fewtrell et al: they're not arguing against the 6 month guideline, but are saying that more research needs to be done. Don't think anyone would argue that really.

4. The ADC article: This is a personal view which they're entitled to, but they don't seem to have anything new to put on the table in terms of evidence.

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My reading of the literature - which I don't claim is comprehensive, though I've tried hard to read as much as I can - has led me to believe that

1. the WHO 6 month guideline is a good "safe guess", in that there's no evidence of harm in delaying weaning to 6 months, but a general trend towards finding harm in early weaning. There's a reasonably good theoretic basis in the "virgin gut " theory.

2. The evidence about allergies is very contradicatory, mostly because of the difficulty of reverse causation. Again, the theory of waiting for gut maturity before introducing allerges is sensible, but there's no proof so far. This disappointed me as we're an allergic family and I was hoping for some clear guidelines.

3. The evidence generally around weaning is of very poor quality because most studies are observational and most rigorous study designs wouldn't be ethical (randomised controlled trials).

So.... it's tricky. I don't think anyone can claim to have all the answers. I don't think anyone is claiming to have all the answers but personally I've gone with the WHO advice with my 2- knowing that in future something better may come up, but that's life.

Gess, I know it looks as if I'm arguing with you, but actually I agree with you, there needs to be better evidence, and especially, people need to look at individual risk because "one-size-fits-all" guidelines are not going to work for everyone.

Another thought: where the WHO approach is very strong is in challenging cultural ideas about weaning, and looking instead at nutrition and health.

4 month weaning is cultural, and in other places and other times would seem quite odd. We shouldn't take it for granted that this is standard or normal or instinctive - that's just our cultural prejudice.

fair comments welliemum- I've no particular alignment with either "side" tbh- just agree with noddy really. The evidence isn't 100%, the guidelines may change again in the future, they may be different for ff infants (ds3 was ff and I really can't see how giving him baby rice at 5 months was much different to formula- ff babies may tend to have juices etc as well- so can't see a pear is going to make much difference either- certainly I was more concerned about ds3 "drinking" (water in his case) whereas I never even thought about offering breastfed ds1 and ds2 a drink). I guess I'm saying that I didn't quite see the point of this thread and the way it was presented. I dont think giving ds3 baby rice at 5 months was particularly stupid- I think I would have been mad to give him gluten at aged 2- think I would be mad to give it to him now. Individuals.

My concern was with autoimmunity and diet- quite a bit coming out in that area (not to do with weaning- just generally and with gut problems).

And I certianly wasn't being competitive about feeding ds3 at 5 months- I did my best to avoid all children the same age as ds3 until he was over 18 months!

I know nothing about autoimmunity and diet - allergy is our family "thing" so that's what I've read about.... lots of theory but few hard facts as we both have noted!

Incidentally, if you have a look at the "weaning research" thread, I've discussed on there a study about HIV in South Africa - to cut a long story short, for their particular outcome they found that the best was exclusive breastfeeding to 6 months, then mix bf and ff, and introducing solids before 6 months came last by quite a long way.

V. interesting I think as it's the first time to my knowledge that someone has demonstrated harm from introducing solids before 6 months.

I know a woman who has just started giving her 12 week old baby rice. She has 2 other kids, and her argument is that her baby is hungry - she weaned all the others at 12 weeks and it didn't harm them (that she is aware of) I honestly don't think anyone would have ever explained the dangers and reasons not to wean, many people have a very distrustful relationship with hvs - and ignore all advice on principle. When i talked to her about it and very tactfully (so i thought) tried to tell her why it was a good idea to wait, she said that she was the only one who knows whats best for HER baby.

When dd2 was 4 months old, another woman who had her baby in the same week as me told me with such pride that she'd got her baby to eat beans mash and sausage liquidised up with some formula. I was When i told her i was just going to breastfeed and start thinking about weaning at 6 months, she was .

I don't think it's possible not to judge in a situation where you know a child's health is being put at risk. If someone doesnt' use a carseat and smokes around their newborn, i'd say they were behaving recklessly, and if someone weans at 12 weeks -and have all the information available to make a better choice - then they are being reckless.

(but should that be wreckless or reckless?)

Alot of people still dont' have that information though, they still don't know that it's harmful - just like my mum smoked around me and carried me on her knee in the car. The advice really needs to be expressed better and to more people.

I agree with noddy and it's the patronising tone/smugness that gets to me.

Message withdrawn

When I had DS, we then weaned at 4 months. However, DS had really really awful constipation and nothing would shift it. We tried the brown sugar in water, prune juice, orange juice and he was still bunged up. All he did was scream and this was so unlike him because believe it or not, he wasn't a crying baby, only when he was hungry.

Through pure desperation to relieve his obvious discomfort, me and my mum had a chat and we decided to try some baby rice (DS is 12 weeks at this stage). So what we done was just give him a little on the end of a spoon. 3 hours later he had the biggest dump you have ever seen (sorry if TMI). From that day on I gave him just a little baby rice a lunch time. This sorted him out.

I didn't wean him properly until 4 months though.

Just wanted to add my slosh of anecdotal evidence to this delicious weaning mixture

I am 35 and I was not weaned until at least 7 months (and sometimes my mum claims it was more like 9 months). I just wasn't interested and she couldn't see the point

Not everyone over the age of 10 has had baby rice funnelled into them from the age of 3 months.

First of all my cat likes pigeons so let's give him an Easter treat and put him there....

I was told that the reason you shouldn't wean early is because of allergies - ie if you give them wheat early they are more likely to be allergic to it. If that's true, how the hell do all the formula fed babies not have milk allergies (given that milk is probably the third most common food allergy (after nuts and wheat?))

Also my personal experience of allergies is that I used to have allergies when I lived in the city - hay fever, food allergies etc. and now that I live in the country they have mysteriously vanished. I'm blaming the dirty air in the cities and the chemicals (I used to live in a city where they had heavy industries). So could it be that the rise in childhood allergies is actually more to do with parents driving their 4X4s around Chelsea to buy organic veggies for their little darlings? Rather than the fact that they started weaning earlier?

Oh and I've eaten baby rice myself, it's pretty nice with apple in actually (I was recovering from gastric flu, it was very easy on the old tum). It may look yuck but it's just rice. I eat rice a lot, mostly with curry but you have to start somewhere.

Also maybe if there wasn't such a dirth of good breastfeeding support maybe mums wouldn't feel so abandoned and want to try early weaning because if your baby is crying continually through hunger and you don't know how to boost your milk supply.

So to summise, yes it's daft to wean before 12 weeks, but whatever you do you will be condemned for it (not least by your MiL who thinks you cruel to wait till six months), your kids will probably get allergies early (not least because it's a trendy illness to get - sorry I know some people have genuine allergies but there is a world of difference between anaphalaxis and 'bananas make me fart' so-called allergies).

So perhaps we could use the energy we take to criticise to support new mums instead. Perhaps we could find a new mum each and make sure they feel confident in how they feed their children and lead by example more gently?

Off to eat a large chocolate easter egg now (DD not getting any obviously!)

So much about being a parent is a race and weaning is one of the first you can win after the whole how big were they at birth.

Eventually I hope the ignorance that causes people to still wean at this age will fade as health professionals recieve proper training on the matter and are forced to update their training on a regular basis.

Hopefully early weaning will become culturally abnormal in this country and 6 months will become normal and accepted.

I could go on to spout evidence about myself and siblings about our early weaning but there would be no point. HAs anyone on this thread said as a nation we are all healthy? Yer, right.

Tinkerbelle - I was condemned by my health visitor for not giving solids until 6 months never mind people in the family. Frankly, I couldnt give a damn

The SA study abstract is no longer coming up on the link you gave welliemum. Judging by your summary though, it's not that relevant to early weaning in terms of allergies etc. One group, living in very extreme circumstances.

this is a very interesting article relating to intestinal permeability and the development of autoimmune disease. May possible have implications for allergies as well, and I know from other work that leaky gut can be related to abnormal intetinal flora- so could explain a benefit of breastfeeding (I'm extrapolating wildly here- but think it's an interesting article if you're interesting in diet and disease.)

Oh, I wasn't suggesting that the HIV study was relevant to allergy at all.

The reason I think this study is very interesting is the huge difference in infection risk between the babies who were exclusively breastfed and the ones who were breastfed but started solids before 6 months.

I believe it's an important finding because the introduction of solids before 6 months was definitely harmful for those babies, and that (as far as I know) is the first time harm of weaning before 6 months has been rigorously demonstrated.

Now, people in industrialised nations don't usually face that particular dilemma (of deciding how to feed a baby when mum is HIV positive), but the implication of this study is that something happens when you introduce solids before 6 months, and that something might well have relevance to all babies.

But this is a bit off topic to this thread, which is about weaning at 12 weeks, not 6 months.

My DD got her first solids at 6 months. She never acted like she wanted anything solid until then. She just started taking an intrest in our food. She was still breasting though, maybe that makes a diffrence.

Just going to read the Gut article now, ta for that...