Infant Feeding: What is it again?

It is understandable that the nutrition of an infant is the basis of its harmonious development and growth. Food is the main source of energy, it contains all the necessary substances for the growth of the child's body. Therefore, her choice should be approached especially carefully.

In the first year of life there is an intensive growth of the child: in the fourth month the body weight is doubled, and in a year - it is tripled. In this case , the digestive organs of the baby are in the development stage and have certain characteristics. That is why the nutrition of infants should be strictly balanced according to all medical recommendations.

Why can not we feed the kids by eating ourselves? The fact is that the salivary glands produce an insufficient amount of saliva until about the fourth month, and the activity of food enzymes is low, and its amplification is possible only with years. Bile is also characterized by certain characteristics, and the peristalsis of the intestine in the baby is unstable. All this makes digestion difficult. The need for necessary nutrients in the baby is huge, but there is no possibility of digesting it.

Therefore, the best nutrition for an infant is mother's milk. It has neither natural nor artificial analogues, because it is 100% adapted to the needs of a particular child and contains the amount of nutrients that a baby needs. It is it that is maximally absorbed by the child's organism.

It contains a huge number of protective factors and nutrients for the baby (hormones, enzymes, leukocytes, immunoglobulins). Experts have proved that if nutrition for children up to a year is focused on the use of breast milk, then this has a beneficial effect on the intestinal microflora.

Note that it also contains antibodies that help create an immune barrier for the baby (especially in the first three months of life) and protect against the most common infections. It should be noted that among the advantages also note its complete sterility and the optimum temperature corresponding to the norm.

However, there comes a time when the baby is already short of those nutrients that are contained in the mother's milk. There is a moment when the nutrition of the infant is necessary to enrich other food products.

It should be remembered that by feeding on breast milk, the child should receive it in sufficient quantity. How is this determined? The baby after the feeding looks healthy, calm, there is frequent emptying of the bladder (about 15-16 times a day). A chair in a healthy child is observed twice a day, the mass is increased, the skin is pinkish and has an elastic structure.

If the weight is not added, or it occurs in insufficient quantity, and the kid behaves restlessly and constantly requires milk, several weighings must be carried out to determine the amount of food he receives.

In order to determine how much milk a one-month-old baby receives per day, you need to divide the body weight by 5. Then the resulting amount is divided by the number of feedings. Thus, you get the volume of food that enters the baby's body for one feeding. In general, the amount of milk received by a child at one month's age should be approximately 150 g.

The nursing woman should strictly monitor what is in her diet: all that she eats is the nutrition of the infant, only in an adapted form. Breastfeeding is a psychological and physiological need of the baby, he feels protected and calm near the mother's breast. However, you should not forget that gradually, starting from 5-6 months, you need to start introducing complementary foods, the rules of which will tell you the pediatrician, having analyzed the state of health of the baby.