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25.08.06: Your baby’s food when he is 6 – 12 months
Starting from the seventh month of life a baby may start to “get acquainted” with adult food. It refers to all babies, having both breast feeding or artificial feeding. Babies of this age may eat vegetable puree or minced meat. Parents often ask which is better: to cook food by themselves or buy children nutrition in cans. To answer this question it is necessary to remember, that the technology of cooking and the quality of initial products are equally important for a baby. In other words, safety of fertilizers for vegetables, fruits; quality of grass, that cows are eating – these things must also be taken into consideration. But you cannot get such information when you buy products in a supermarket.
State standards are oriented on adult consumers, while small children are extremely sensitive to perspective ecological pollution. That is why in the developed countries children nutrition is produced on special farms, in accordance with strict technology. As a result, children nutrition cans are much better than self-cooked food, except cases, of course, when parents have an opportunity to grow vegetables by themselves and than feed their growing child.
Still there is one more detail worth mentioning. In Western countries there is no difference between kinds of meat for babies. In Russia, however, there is a tendency to avoid chicken and fish during the first year of life. Researches, conducted by Russian pediatricians, showed that due to the immaturity of baby’s digestive, these types of meat may often cause allergy. But as the digestive system becomes more mature, fish and chicken are well assimilated.
Natalia Ivanenko, CMS, Family Doctor, Pediatrician, American Medical Center
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