Please somebody tell me about the research that shows that weaning before 6 months "may damage your baby".

[SenoraPostrophe]

....only all I can find is the Gill Rapely research, which, as far as I can tell, was based on a small study, centered on chewing not digestion and wasn't longitudinal. I could be wrong as the paper itself isn't online. I did find lots of summaries of it and lots of talk about stone age mothers not having blenders (well no, but they did have teeth).

Is there more to it than this? and if not, why is everybody being quite so aggressive about it?

Oh, I'll never be cool, I'd better get interested in science then

[resigned]

Can I ask if anyone knows of hereditary (sp?) problems with Chrons... my mum died at the age of 48 because of her chrons.

My dad keeps wanting me to get tested to see if possibly the girls are at risk.

Anyone have any info?

FWIW I weaned Jessi at 4mnths and Becca at 6.5mnths

oh what a shame jarm, that's too young. how awful. i'm afraid i don't know anything about the hereditary aspect, though.

Crohns is not hereditary in teh same sense as some diseases like haemophilia huntingtons etc. but there is evidence that there may be a hereditary factor - maybe a predisposing factor or maybe some cases are hereditary, others are sporadic. People I have worked with in the past used to research causes and treatments, but personally I don't know much about it directly.

From the web: "If you have the disorder there is a 10-25% chance that a further family member (child/parent/sibling) will also have or develop Crohn's disease."

Thing is because there isn't a (known)specific gene which causes it there won't be a genetic test - the only tests that would be available would be to look for the disease itself which I assume is colonoscopy (but I guess you will know more about that than me).

Sorry JARM - not what you wanted to here
for you.

Political reasons for 'weaning at 6 months' guidelines .......

A HV that I rate highly suggested that the guidelines are now 6 months purely because when they were 4 months, - people used to wean at 2 and a half.

Of course, - I have no studies to back this up, - but I see that the question was asked earlier in the thread and thought this was an interesting possibility.

After all, - as a mother and particularly when pregnant I have never been more patronised or interfered with!

Good thread by the way!!!

jarm, i've been thinking about your question... i take it that you are scheduled to get routine colonoscopies after a certain agge? i know that they do that with bowel cancer people (both my mum and dad had it...) so me and my siblings are on a list to get poked and prodded from the age of 40. is there anything like that?

sorry, i'm aitch, will go and change name back.

I dont know of any routine tests following mum dying from Chrons.

I spoke to the doctor when pregnant with Rebecca and he said he would refer me to a consultant if I so wished, but not until I had the baby as the tests are too intrusive to do whilst pregnant.

I put it off and put it off and of course, im pregnant again now, so thats me out until at least January now, but I dont want to go through the tests if there is a low risk - they are intrusive, and im not sure I want to go through it.

Understandably, my dad is worried, for me and the girls, but so far the girls are showing no signs and no intolerances to food, where as there are certain things I cant eat without spending the following day on the toilet!

I know there probably is a chance I will develop it, but I guess I prefer head in sand approach.

Sorry for the waffle and gatecrash on this thread, wanted to ask on the other thread where Chrons kept coming up but didnt feel comfortable.

Feel free to ignore now!

i do kinda know what you mean about sticking your head in the sand...
it might be worth asking your GP if that approach might harm you, though. i don't know if it'd be better to be treated before it starts to affect you. it's quite literally a pain in the arse, isn't it, all this hereditary medical stuff... can't wait to have a camera stuck up my bottom, personally... [

Have a look at the WHO website, you will be able to find the research they used to make that recommendation. Personally I don't find it very reassuring as I think a fixed in stone guideline (26 weeks) is not appropriate but having seen the crap people feed their babies I understand why they came up with that guideline. From what I can remember Crohn's is not specifically mentionned.

holly, the resoning behind the guideline has nothing to do with what people feed their babies....zero. It is based on research that compared the health outcomes and growth of babies in different locations around the world. The results showed that in general there was no drawback to breastfeeding exclusively to 6 months, and that there were health risks in introducing other foods before this time.

No one believes that every baby needs other foods on exactly the same day (26 weeks post-natal) - in real life precise dates like this translate into a bit of 'fuzziness'. The most common sense thing is to be guided by your individual baby, and in practice, this means having solid food on offer at around six months without worrying too much whether the baby takes very much of it, either - the big advantage, as I see it, of baby-led weaning is that it helps take anxiety away, and trusts the baby to take what he enjoys and what he needs (without the hassle of pureeing and spoonfeeding).

Tiktok: Is it baby-led weaning when at 5 months your baby takes a handful of soil, chews it and swallows some, - or is that just bad parenting?

My LO did this morning at the park!

Bless

It's terrible parenting of course!!

Thought so!