When to Introduce Solid Food to Baby

9/12/24 - Dr. Jack Stockwell, www.forbiddendoctor.com & www.jackstockwell.com | Phone: [phone], shares insights on the questions that arise most with patients in his clinic and how we can find guidance and answers in our own health journey. Today’s discussion includes when to introduce solid foods to baby, when mineral nutrients begin to decline in breast milk, the relationship between iron and zinc, and how red blood cells work.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's the Good Day Health podcast with doctor Jack Stockwell,
sponsored in part by Calendred, the safe, proven way to
lose weight and keep it off.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm doctor Jack Stockwell at forbiddendoctor dot com and once
again I would like to express my appreciation for being
a part of his regular program. Doug and I go
way back, probably close to two decades now and friends
as well as radio associates, and so I try to

(00:34):
present on a weekly basis topics that are reflective of
the questions that I'm asked in my clinic. I'm in
the clinic Monday, Monday through Friday. Thursday is supposed to
be a day off, but Thursday is the day that
I do paperwork reports, insurance reports, X ray reports, everything

(00:58):
else I've got to do, as well as occasionally work
on a patient that we've had a little bit of
trouble with because of the complexities of their spine misalignment.
And while I was working on somebody like that, just recently,

(01:19):
the question of feeding a baby, because most of the
times I talk on this show, my orientation is towards adults,
of course, and someone mentioned that, well, what about baby
and a lot of a lot of us will just

(01:41):
default to the breast, and when the baby kind of
self weans, when the baby starts pushing the nipple or
the breast away, that it's time for food, and which
of course is nonsense. They need solid food much sooner
than that. So I thought I would spend some time
I'm on the show today addressing that subject, because the

(02:05):
debate centers around the time to introduce solid food to infants,
and most of the medical organizations, including the American Academy
of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization, the European Society for
Pediatric Gastroetrology, Epatology, Nutrition, they all agree that they recommend

(02:29):
the introduction of solid food sometime between the fourth and
the sixth month, and all of them are in agreement
that solid foods before the fourth month can predispose the
baby to gastrointestinal problems and allergies, and that if you
delay introducing solid foods after six months, then there's a

(02:53):
possibility that baby is just not going to get all
the nutrients that he or she needs, as the nutritional
quality of the breast milk begins to degrade a little
bit after six months. So the recommendations for what I
recommend for solid food. If you can get the book,

(03:14):
the Nourishing Traditions Book of Baby and Child Care, I
can't recommend a better book than that, The Nourishing Traditions
Book of Baby and Childcare. You can get it at Amazon.
And as for what to give baby, I have very
grave concerns about the conventional recommendations out there. So I

(03:38):
used to have available to my patients the kind of
foods and whatever. And then when I discovered for baby,
and then when I discovered this book once again, the
Nourishing Traditions Book of Baby and Childcare, I just tell
them to get that. It's all you need to know
is in that book. Because a very mature baby is

(03:58):
ready for some solid food at four months, while a smaller,
less mature baby may not be ready until six months.
And some of my mothers that I take care of
will tell me, well, they had fast growing babies and
were ready for solid food at four months, and they

(04:19):
would say, well, as soon as we started to introduce
some puaid food, they were less fussy, they went longer
between feedings, they would sleep better through the night, and
it was such a great relief. They would say to
sleep through the night themselves. So that they could settle
down into a much better routine. And at the same time,

(04:40):
they started to introduce, in some cases as early as
four months, some solid foods that were puraied. Of course,
they still were breastfeeding, and they would supplement the breast
milk with the food that they were making. So many
object and then some mothers object to some of the

(05:02):
advice I'm giving, and they, you know, look at me, like, well,
how many babies have you breastfed? Well, it's not a
matter of experience at this so much as it is learning, researching,
getting the best sources of information as to what needs
to be done. And a lot of that is looking
at the practices of traditional people rather than what so

(05:25):
called mother or modern science has to tell you. And
I'm going to get to that in a moment. But
those who've objected to giving solid food before six months,
you know, argue that solid food should be delayed as
long as possible. In other words, continue with breastfeeding. You
just stay with breastfeeding, maybe you'll get all that needs
from breast milk. Some felt that they could get everything

(05:47):
they needed from breast milk alone, even past the one
year mark. One mother who had been researching was showing
that babies need more iron then mom can supply after
just six months, and that the mineral levels and mom's
breast milk begins to decline over time. And they felt

(06:10):
that the problem could be solved by letting baby get
their minerals, no kidding, by playing in the dirt and others.
You know, well, the baby just isn't interested in food
that much, and they would often describe how little food
actually got into the baby's mouth when they practice what's
called baby lead weaning. In other words, the baby will

(06:34):
decide when it wants to wean itself from the breast.
And some of the mothers there's a saying out there
food before one is just for fun. And the last
time I heard that was some time ago. But I thought, oh,
I just cringed when I heard that you feed a
baby solid food before they're won just to have fun

(06:56):
with baby for Pete's sake. So as to how important
this is, I would tell these mothers just look at
the practices of traditional people and then see whether that
mixes well with what modern science. From these agencies I
mentioned at the beginning of this program. If they match,

(07:18):
if they can be married and there are a couple
of studies out there with some very valuable information. One
is a survey of childbirth and breastfeeding practices in one
hundred eighty six non industrial cultures, which means they don't
have refrigeration and in many cases they don't even have electricity.

(07:43):
What they have to eat they glean from the earth,
from their crops, from their animals, whatever else on an
almost daily basis. And the main focus of that study
was to the are the what are the traditions that
promotes maternal bonding with the baby at the same time

(08:04):
they're looking at the feeding practices, and they were surprised
to find that most cultures began weaning at six months
or earlier. In fact, one mother led weaning, not baby
led weaning. And so they found that one third of

(08:24):
the cultures that they were looking at, solid food was
given before one month of age, and contrary to the
expectation of a very long, prolonged period of breast milk
being the sole source of infant nutrition, solid foods in
some cases were introduced before one month of age in

(08:47):
one third of these cultures and between one and six
months in another third, and the last third no solid
foods were introduced into baby's diet until after six months. Now,
A more recent survey looked at the practices in about
one hundred and thirteen non industrial populations from around the world,

(09:09):
and they found that more than half of these cultures
introduced solid foods before six months, with five to six
months in this study being the most common timeframe, but
breastfeeding continued anywhere from ten to twenty nine months. So
while they started introducing solid foods as early as six months,

(09:32):
in some cases earlier, they still continued to breastfeed for
as long as two and a half years in some
of these studies that there are some of the populations
they were looking at, and some of the online comments
indicated that the advocacy of solid foods before six months

(09:55):
was you know, well, they're just opposed to breastfeeding. Well,
nothing could be further from the truth. The solid foods
are in addition to breast milk and a homemade formula
when necessary, and so the combination of solid food plus
breast milk would continue for many months. And this is

(10:17):
interestingly enough, this is what you see in the animal world.
Baby animals breast feed exclusively only for a short period
of time, you know, just a month or so in
the case of cows and pigs, and then they get
nurished with a combination of the solid foods that mama's
eating plus breast milk for a much longer period. So

(10:41):
while a newborn calf will nurse more than a month,
it's just the exclusive nursing from mama cow, there's only
about a month, and while it may continue to nurse thereafter,
it's already introducing solid foods into its diet. And the
key reason given for the introduction of solid food by

(11:03):
six months is because of the iron the iron status
of the baby's developing bodies. So although mother's breast milk
contains lactiferron, which helps the baby absorb one hundred percent
of the iron in her milk, iron content is generally low,
and one explanation for this is that baby needs a

(11:25):
lot more zinc than iron during the first few months
of life, and breast milk just happens to be very
high in zinc. And then baby also gets a good
supply of iron in the cord blood, and in some
of the more conservative birthing practices, the cord is left
attached to the baby until something interesting happens. Now we're

(11:48):
going to go to a break here in just a
few moments, and I'll tell you what that is. What
happens to the umbilical cord attached to the baby that
a good berther is watching for before they cut that cord.
I was telling you the relationship between iron and zinc,

(12:10):
and there is indication that baby needs more zinc than
iron during the first few months of life. Interestingly enough,
breast milk is very high in zinc. And it's when
you know there's two different sources of information when you're
trying to figure out a problem or come to some
kind of a conclusion that will bring some peace to

(12:30):
your heart and your mind. It's always a good idea
to look at nature. What is Mother Nature trying to
tell us, as opposed to what the food industry is
telling you or the baby formula industry is trying to
tell you baby needs. Just watch baby and you'll probably

(12:52):
learn most of what you need to know, and by
and by it not just baby, but baby's physiology and
the and the health of the baby as well. Now
I said that baby gets a good supply of iron
in the cord blood, So there are some birthing practices
that as soon as baby emerges, the cord is clipped,

(13:14):
the little pinching device is stuck on the little piece
of the cords, you know, still emerging from baby's abdomen
until it kind of falls off, and then baby gets
its belly button, and then the placenta. Then they wait
for the birth of the placenta, and they want to
examine the placenta, making sure that all the parts of

(13:39):
the placenta are present so that you don't have to
worry about some piece of it still attached to the
urine wall that can lead to some serious bleeding. And
then cot aledens. There's a term called cot aledens, and
there's usually twelve of them in a placenta, and the
cotta leedens are where the placenta attaches to the wall,

(14:01):
and so they look at it to make sure all
twelve of them are there, you know, in a normal
placental development. Now there are birthing practices, especially in more
knowledgeable birthing centers, that when the baby emerges, they watch
that cord. That cord is full of iron. The blood

(14:22):
that's in that umbilical cord is full of iron, and
the cord is still pulsing even after baby's birth. It's
still you can see a little pulsing movement in that
cord and it's pushing that iron rich blood into the
baby before they cut that cord. And the normal turnover

(14:49):
for blood cells, for red blood cells is four months,
which brings up another very important point that I want
to make. I want you to understand the relationship with
iron and zen in and copper in the health of
a newborn baby. When do we start introducing solid foods
into baby's diet. And there's a lot of conjecture out

(15:12):
there and a lot of different opinions, and there's a
lot of different books. A couple of them I've looked at.
I didn't read the whole thing because I only had
to look at a couple of chapter titles in the
title of the contents and then scan through those chapters
and realize, uh, this is not a book I can recommend.
And maybe I can get into more of that here

(15:33):
in a few minutes as to why some of these
are just playing to the standard information coming out of
the American Academy Pediatrics, the United States Department of Agriculture,
and just modern food myths regarding the baby. But I'm
back to the cord, and so a good birthing center

(15:54):
knows not to cut that cord until that cord quits
pulsing because it's still pushing iron rich blood into that baby. Now,
as I said, the normal turnover for red blood cells
is four months. Now, think about that. The red blood
cells that baby's body has been developing in utero are

(16:16):
the same red blood red blood cells that are operating
your body right now, carrying oxygen from the lungs to
the cells. The normal turnover for red blood cells four months.
So a red blood cell comes out of the marrow
of your long bones, assisted by the presence of vitamin
B twelve, which is why beating B twelve is so

(16:39):
vitally important for the maturation of red blood cells. That
red blood cell gets into the blood stream, filtered every
few minutes through the spleen, filtered every few minutes through
the liver to keep the bloodstream nice and clean, and
for the next four months, that red blood cell covered
with hemoglobin because it's the hemoglobin that carries the oxygen,

(17:02):
not the cell itself, but the cell is completely covered
with an envelope of hemoglobe. And for four months, it
will do its job, and at the end of four
months or they're around or thereabouts, it goes through a
kind of a recycling process. And so baby now is
born with those same red blood cells, and for the

(17:22):
next four months of that baby's life, all the red
blood cells are going to have that turnover period. Now,
some of them have already been turning over inside of
baby while baby's still in the uterus. But you've got
this jumpstart now with the iron coming out of that cord.

(17:42):
But mineral levels begin to decrease after a while, and
by six months, iron deficiency is a distinct possibility in
the exclusively breastfed baby. In fact, the mineral levels, as
I said here a moment ago, start to decline in
mother's milk almost from birth and continue after the six

(18:06):
month mark. And so this study showed a decrease in
zinc and copper and potassium. But interestingly enough, this study
documented decline in zinc and copper over time. Now why
is that important. There are so many enzyme processes in

(18:26):
human physiology that are zinc dependent. In other words, if
you are if you're have insufficient amounts of zinc in
the system, you're going to have some enzymes that just
simply can't form, and some of the most powerful enzymes
in the body. They're needed throughout the body, but some

(18:47):
of the most powerful or involved with our immune system,
especially baby's immune system. So when the baby is after
four months and certainly a preapproaching sixth months, it needs
something more than mother's milk, no matter how good mother's
diet is, and the better her diet, the better the

(19:08):
quality of milk. Obviously, mineral content in these studies begins
to decrease in mother's milk. The other argument is, you
know what about allergies. You know allergies can be avoided
by delaying solid food is the general idea, and a
recent review of some studies found that the risk of

(19:31):
allergy is a considerable point of interest. The currently available
research suggests that introducing solid foods at four to six
months actually may result in a lower allergy risk. Something
to keep in mind here is baby's immune system needs

(19:51):
development during those first few months. Well, it's going to
develop the whole life, but those first few months are
very important. Breast fed, exclusively breastfed baby for say a
year before they start to get solid food is getting
way behind the allergen response of the baby's immune system,

(20:15):
you're getting way behind the ball. So when all aspects
of health are taken into account, the recommended duration of
just exclusive breastfeeding and the age of when we introduce
solids was confirmed to be about six months and no later. Now,
other moms were insisting that baby's gut is just simply

(20:39):
too permeable for solid foods at four months or even
much later. So one of my mentors who I have
been trained personally taught over a period of three days
is doctor Natasha Campbell McBride. And if you know anything

(20:59):
about gas apps, gaps, gut in psychology syndrome, you know
something about doctor McBride and in her opinion, and she
is one of the world's absolute experts on gut permiability.
And she said this, The majority of babies are ready
to be weaned by six months, but many babies are

(21:22):
ready earlier. They start getting hungry because they're not getting
enough from mother's milk. To add formula to these babies
is not a good idea. It is much better to
start adding real food, although no grains, no beans, or
any starchy or difficult to digest plant start. According to

(21:46):
and She has a book called The New Baby Diet
and it's on her website if you just google Gaps
or google Natasha Campbell McBride. What she says you need
to start feeding baby six months is animal foods, meat, stock, meats, fish, eggs,

(22:07):
fermented raw dairy from home or raw milk should be introduced,
as well as cooked vegetables and some freshly pressed juices
from raw vegetables and fruit, gradually a little bit at
a time. One of the important things about this is
that it needs to be purayed, pure aid to the

(22:30):
point where it's watery before you start introducing this into
baby's diet. But to stay away from grains and so
some others will say, well, baby's first food is supposed
to be rice, isn't it. No, If you look at
the ingredients of that box of rice cereal, it's been

(22:54):
processed to the point where the real value of the
rice has been removed the brand. Just like when you
mill wheat to get white bread, all you've done is
turn that white bread into sugar, because the real nutritional
part of that wheat is in the germ and in

(23:14):
the brand. Same thing with rice, which is why anytime
I love Thai food. And there's a couple of Thai
restaurants in the Salt Lakes of the area that I
like to go to, and I always make sure that
I get brown rice. I don't want the white rice.
I want the brown rice. And some of the people
that I might be eating with are just white rice fanatics.

(23:37):
And it's the same thing as white bread. They would
rather have a sandwich with white bread than wheat bread.
But with baby, baby's digestive system is not ready for
grains whatsoever milled or not milled, and baby's digestive system
is not ready for beans and the others startchy difficult

(23:57):
to digest plants because you need them or advanced digestive
system to handle those things. And even as an adult,
less is best. So the best advice I have run
across looking at these indigenous groups around around the planet
and some of the best pediatric of science that I trust.

(24:21):
You want to start feeding what adults should be eating
animal foods and so in the form of meat, stock
and meats and fish and eggs and fermented raw dairy
such as kiefer or yogurt, as well as some very

(24:42):
well cooked vegetables. Nothing raw unless it's some juice, and
I'm I find mother's way overdoing fresh pressed juices from
vegetables and fruit because it overwhelms their digestive system because
they're not designed to eat that much concentrated food in
such a small volume. The baby's gut walls permeable for

(25:04):
a reason, because it's necessary to develop oral tolerance of
a whole plethora of antigens from the environment, and when
you're introducing foods during that time, it ensures that the
child develops some tolerance and can eat natural foods without
reacting with allergies. Now, as far as Doctor Natasha's advice

(25:30):
is concerned regarding what is best to feed baby, I
agree with almost everything she says, except I'm not too
wild as I said earlier about pushing fruit or vegetable
juices into baby, not yet. And then this assertion that
I mentioned at the very beginning of the program some

(25:53):
comments that I've heard so a platitude food before one
is just for one, just for fun. In other words,
the only reason if you're breastfeeding a baby, and the
only reason you would start introducing solid foods to a
baby before they're one year old, is just to have fun.
With them, like baby is sitting there at the dinner

(26:13):
table with mom and dad and the kids or whatever
family arrangement you have. Babysitting there in a high chair
should be sitting down with everybody else getting ready to eat.
And some of the craziest things I have seen is
where several different kinds of foods are spread out all

(26:34):
over the tray of the highchair so baby can decide
what baby wants to eat. You do something like if
you do something like that, I'll tell you at the
end of the first year, baby isn't going to eat
anything but pizza. Mom and dad know what baby needs
to eat because mom and dad have studied these subjects

(26:57):
and have researched these subjects and understand the relationship with
iron and zinc and copper and some of the more
trace minerals that are required for babies development. Baby will
never develop more faster in the sense of total integration

(27:18):
of the baby's entire physiology than during the first year
of life. Thereafter, with all of the growth and all
of the development and everything else that takes place is
second to that first year of life. The connections in
the brain, the hardening of the bones, the development of

(27:38):
coordination matters a ton before one, and the way you
feed baby, when and how and what will make all
the difference in their future health, their appearance, and most
importantly their intelligence. And it's very clear from both tradition
and science that most babies should receive solid food by
six months. I hope that helps. There's a bunch of

(28:05):
books on the subject, but a lot of books and
research available. I highly recommend doctor Natasha McBride's book, and
I highly recommend anything that you can get to read
that reflects what the animal Kingdom is doing, especially the
Nourishing Traditions Book of Baby and Childcare. I'm doctor Jack

(28:25):
Stockwell at Forbidden doctor dot com.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
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