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Wednesday 18 May 2016 2:13pm

Associate Professor Rachael Taylor, EDOR co-director, Dr Anne-Louise Heath, senior lecturer in the Department of Human Nutrition, and Brittany Morison, Master of Science graduate, have co-authored the first study that compares a baby-led weaning approach with the traditional spoon-feeding method of introducing solids to babies.

Baby-led weaning (BLW) is an increasingly popular alternative to spoon feeding in several countries, including New Zealand and Australia. In the BLW approach, infants from around six months of age are allowed to feed themselves all their food as finger food. Until now, there has been no study that compares dietary intake in infants following BLW, with infants who are spoon-fed.

The results of this study, published in the open access British Medical Journal (BMJ Open), show that infants following BLW were more likely to be exclusively breastfed to six months of age, and to wait until then to start solids. This is in line with World Health Organisation recommendations to delay the start of solids until 6 months of age.

BLW infants had similar energy intakes to those who were spoon-fed, but appeared to consume higher amounts of total fat and saturated fat. They also had lower intakes of iron, zinc and vitamin B12 than spoon-fed babies.

No statistical difference was found in choking risk between BLW and the spoon-fed approach, although a high number of parents in all the study groups offered foods thought to pose a choking risk.

Given these issues, Drs Heath and Taylor are currently running a much larger randomised controlled trial - the Baby-Led Introduction to SolidS study (BLISS) - which is investigating a version of BLW that has been modified to address concerns with the BLW approach around iron intake, choking, and potential low energy intakes. Twelve month findings are expected later this year.

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