With the invention of the scales the professionals got a perfect tool to control that the newborns fed well the first weeks. This benefit, however, has become almost a problem for healthy babies over 2 months who do not gain as much weight as other babies, because their mothers become obsessed with weight and because on many occasions pediatricians and nurses, instead of reassuring mothers, enter the same game.
Everyone starts to worry about the weight because they think the baby is thin and they would like it to be thicker and they start to make decisions that make no sense, as change breast milk for artificial milk or start give complementary feeding ahead of time.
The absurdity of changing breast milk to artificial milk
Surely on more than one occasion you have heard the story of a mother who has been told to stop breastfeeding and start feeding her baby because she is not getting fat enough. I have seen it. The most curious (or not so much) is that in most cases there is no change in weight: the baby keeps getting fat at the same rate.
Obviously I do not speak of newborns, when breastfeeding is not established and there are problems, but of babies of for example 2 or 3 months, whose lactation is going well.
How is it possible to change milk and the baby does not get fatter? Because both types of milk have, by law, the same calories: breast milk provides 70 kcal per 100 ml and artificial milk provides between 60 and 70 kcal per 100 ml. Is it that professionals do not realize that it is impossible for the other milk to gain much more weight?
Then you will tell me ... but with the bottle they eat more because milk does not stop coming out, and we could say that it depends: some babies will eat a little more than with the breast, and others probably not, because they do not want to have the feeling of being completely full . The difference, and what balances the matter, is that Babies who bottle feed usually make fewer shots. It is of no use that in each shot you eat more if it later takes longer to eat again, as much as 3 or 4 hours as many babies do, when those who breastfeed can do it every 2 hours.
Then you will tell me ... but those of artificial milk have always gained a little more weight. And it's true. There is a trend. Although they contain the same amount of kcal, artificial milk contains a greater amount of protein and thanks to that some bottle babies tended to get a little more fat, to have more skunk.
Not only is this not a benefit, but it is considered a detriment, a problem of artificial milk that has failed to reach the level of breastfeeding in terms of proteins, and that is why in recent years they are working, all brands of milk, in decrease the protein percentage even moreprecisely to avoid this "fattening effect" that seems to be related to an increase in cases of childhood obesity.
Since proteins are now less, this "fattening effect" is less, and therefore it makes no sense to make the change. But if they had more protein and the baby gained more weight, the advice would be equally counterproductive, because as we said it is an unwanted effect. It would be, saving the distances, like telling a mother to change the vegetable for fast food to fatten her thin child.
Give complementary feeding ahead of time so that you gain more weight
Sometimes the breast milk is not exchanged for the artificial one, or it is done, and the baby arrives at four months without having gained weight what everyone would have wanted. Well, they move on to the next solution, which is that of advance complementary feeding: "Give him the fruit now, and the vegetables and the meat, and the cereals."
We know that breast and artificial milk contains 70 kcal per 100 ml. The apple has 52 Kcal per 100 grams, pear 59, orange 54 and banana 90. As you can see it makes no sense to give fruit instead of milk (unless you are mostly given banana, but then you will probably cause constipation and you will be unbalancing the baby's diet a lot).
On the other hand, we know that the typical vegetable porridge with chicken and oil has a variable amount of calories depending on the amount of chicken or oil that is introduced (and you can not put too much meat, which we go from protein), with an average of 50 Kcal per 100 grams of porridge. I have nothing more to say, Your Honor.
And the cereals? Yes. Cereals do get fatter because a cereal porridge can be around 200 kcal (about 390 kcal per 100 grams of cereals). The problem is that cereal porridge is a nutritionally poorer food (much more) than milk, and also that vegetables and fruits.
Giving a cereal porridge a day will cause you to receive more calories at that time, but in the global day the baby will not actually gain much more weight, because the baby tends to adapt the demand to the amount of calories he receives ... if he you give cereals, you will drink less milk at another time of the day.
So do it "well", as they explain it to you, which is to give a porridge of fruit, one of vegetables and meat and one of cereals will not really change the caloric intake, because what one increases the others decrease it.
Consequently, the only thing that can be done for a baby to get really fat is to give him cereal porridge several times a day. The problem is that we fall into the assumption of before, giving fast food to a child to gain weight. Let's not forget that baby cereals are an industrial product, an unnatural preparation that allows the baby to take a lot of calories in little food. Is this healthy? Well, if it is taken more than once a day, no, because the diet is completely unbalanced.
But what if the baby really has weight problems?
At all times we have talked about babies with a relatively low weight for what people consider appropriate, but with a normal weight. Many babies are like that. Many babies weigh little and are normal, perhaps because they are not very tall, perhaps because they simply do not gain more weight, despite doing everything to try to make them fat.
But there are babies who do not gain much weight. Babies whose height curve is rising well, but whose weight curve is stagnating, so that the baby is getting thinner. What to do? Well look for the cause. If you are drinking little breast milk, see why. If you are drinking enough breast milk, see why despite that slimming.
Because in the first case the baby will start to gain more weight if the mother's low milk production or poor grip is solved, and in the second case, the baby must be tested to see why despite eating well, does not take the weight that your height is asking.
Obviously, in this case, it will not matter if you drink breast milk, artificial milk, cereals, vegetables or fruit. In fact, the worst mistake will be to give him good cereal and take more weight ... the baby will continue to have a problem that causes little weight gain and an increase in weight by priming it to cereals will mask the problem and cause you to choose not to do such tests.
Photos | Nathan Walker, Cody, M&R Glasgow on Flickr
In Babies and more | Supplementary feeding: How much does my child have to eat? (I), (II) and (III), Complementary feeding: cereals
