What is wrong with Rice Cereal?

17 responses so far ↓

• 1 Kate F // Jun 27, 2008

  I gave my son rice cereal at about 5 1/2 months. The only thing I've ever heard wrong with it is if you're putting it in your child's bottle, instead of feeding them with a spoon.

  As far as I know there is nothing wrong with it…keep doing what you're doing.

• 2 Happy mommy // Jun 27, 2008

  Man a lot of mothers on here are like 'super moms' who breastfeed until a year, baby led wean or just have their own opinions on it. obviously there is nothing 'wrong' with it if your doc told you to start it. i personally will make my sons unless i can find a brand where i know what all the ingreadents are. the people who are against it were probably fed rice cereall in their bottles at 2 or 3 months and they are just fine. i would stick to your docs opinion because they aren't going to put your baby at risk.

• 3 The new Mrs. J. Brown // Jun 27, 2008

  i gave my daughter rice cereal and she liked it when i added a little fruit to it (stage one) and she was fine. no digestive problems or anything. I think it's more of what they went through with their child. I would just go with your instincts if your son is fine when eating it then go ahead and feed it to him but if he doesn't like it stop. I used gerber rice cereal by the way if that helps.

• 4 MHW // Jun 27, 2008

  I haven't heard anything bad about rice cereal. If your Dr. recommended it then don't worry about it.

• 5 Jillian // Jun 27, 2008

  there is nothing really right with rice cereal- it has little nutritional value so there is not point. it has not fat or calories ahrdly and hardly any vitamins. so, if your baby is eating food, it shoul be real food, or at least soemthing that ahs more nutritional value- people are saying its going to kill your kidd, cuz it wont. they are just saying it's not nutritionally befeficial. especailly if your child ahd a weight gaining issue it can cause more problems with it

• 6 chrissy // Jun 27, 2008

  its just making my babys reflux worse!!!!

• 7 Ethel // Jun 27, 2008

  Well, there is some concern that rice cereal is simply a processed carbohydrate that quickly metabolizes into sugar. It's good in terms of not being too harmful, but not especially nutritious. I don't know if you should be concerned, I do know that some nutritionists think we should go straight to pureed fruit and vegetables, but then again doctors like babies to try food with some substance that they can tolerate, hence rice cereal. It's all for debate. What's quite clear however is that solid foods should be pushed back to at least 4 months for a formula fed baby, and certainly 6 months for a breast fed baby.

• 8 EmmasMommy TTC // Jun 27, 2008

  Because you hear negative things about everything. Plastic bottles have BPA, glass bottles are dangerous. Start your baby on green veggies or they won't like fruit. Yellow vegetables are easier on the tummy than green. Rice cereal is best because it is easy to digest and highly unlikely to cause allergic reactions, but it does not have any nutrients (which baby is getting from breastmilk anyways???!!!). When you have a baby you get so much contradictory information!

• 9 mystic_eye_cda // Jun 27, 2008

  Have you read what's in it? With the exception of a few organic brands it is full of crap like non-nutritive sweeteners and chemicals to improve mouthfeel.

  Buy even assuming you are using organic whole grain rice cereal the simple fact remains that grains are not really a good source of nutrition for a baby. They have the enzymes needed to digest meats not grains.

  Consuming large amounts of grains is linked to anemia, zinc and protein deficiency.

  Why not cereal?

  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9646449/page...
  Take rice cereal, for example. Under conventional American wisdom, it's the best first food. But Butte says iron-rich meat — often one of the last foods American parents introduce — would be a better choice.

  Dr. David Ludwig of Children's Hospital Boston, a specialist in pediatric nutrition, says some studies suggest rice and other highly processed grain cereals actually could be among the worst foods for infants.

  "These foods are in a certain sense no different from adding sugar to formula. They digest very rapidly in the body into sugar, raising blood sugar and insulin levels" and could contribute to later health problems, including obesity, he says.

  The lack of variety in the American approach also could be a problem. Exposing infants to more foods may help them adapt to different foods later, which Ludwig says may be key to getting older children to eat healthier.

  http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/solids...
  Cereal is not at all necessary, particularly the baby cereals. Regular (whole grain) oatmeal is more nutritious for your baby.

  http://www.askdrsears.com/faq/ci2.asp
  The truth is, there is nothing special about these foods that makes them better to start out with. Babies don't actually even need rice cereal

  http://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVDec...
  Meat provides additional protein, zinc, B-vitamins, and other nutrients which may be in short supply when the decrease in breast milk occurs. A recent study from Sweden suggests that when infants are given substantial amounts of cereal, it may lead to low concentrations of zinc and reduced calcium absorption (Persson 1998). Dr. Nancy Krebs has shared preliminary results from a large infant growth study suggesting that breastfed infants who received pureed or strained meat as a primary weaning food beginning at four to five months, grow at a slightly faster rate. Dr. Krebs' premise is that inadequate protein or zinc from complementary foods may limit the growth of some breastfed infants during the weaning period. Both protein and zinc levels were consistently higher in the diets of the infants who received meat (Krebs 1998). Thus the custom of providing large amounts of cereal products and excluding meat products before seven months of age may not meet the nutritional needs of all breastfed infants.
  Meat has also been recommended as an excellent source of iron in infancy. Heme iron (the form of iron found in meat) is better absorbed than iron from plant sources. In addition, the protein in meat helps the baby more easily absorb the iron from other foods. Two recent studies (Makrides 1998; Engelmann 1998) have examined iron status in breastfed infants who received meat earlier in the weaning period. These studies indicate that while there is not a measurable change in breastfed babies' iron stores when they receive an increased amount of meat (or iron), the levels of hemoglobin circulating in the blood stream do increase when babies receive meat as one of their first foods.

  http://www.westonaprice.org/children/nou...
  Finally, respect the tiny, still-developing digestive system of your infant. Babies have limited enzyme production, which is necessary for the digestion of foods. In fact, it takes up to 28 months, just around the time when molar teeth are fully developed, for the big-gun carbohydrate enzymes (namely amylase) to fully kick into gear. Foods like cereals, grains and breads are very challenging for little ones to digest. Thus, these foods should be some of the last to be introduced. (One carbohydrate enzyme a baby's small intestine does produce is lactase, for the digestion of lactose in milk.1)

  [...]

  Babies do produce functional enzymes (pepsin and proteolytic enzymes) and digestive juices (hydrochloric acid in the stomach) that work on proteins and fats.12 This makes perfect sense since the milk from a healthy mother has 50-60 percent of its energy as fat, which is critical for growth, energy and development.13 In addition, the cholesterol in human milk supplies an infant with close to six times the amount most adults consume from food.13 In some cultures, a new mother is encouraged to eat six to ten eggs a day and almost ten ounces of chicken and pork for at least a month after birth. This fat-rich diet ensures her breast milk will contain adequate healthy fats.14
  Thus, a baby's earliest solid foods should be mostly animal foods since his digestive system, although immature, is better equipped to supply enzymes for digestion of fats and proteins rather than carbohydrates.1 This explains why current research is pointing to meat (including nutrient-dense organ meat) as being a nourishing early weaning food.

  http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content...
  The results indicate that in a group of healthy, well growing 12-month-old Swedish infants one-quarter is iron-depleted, although iron deficiency anaemia is rare, and one-third may be zinc-depleted. The high cereal intake of Swedish infants from 6 months of age may have limited the bioavailability of both iron and zinc from the diet.

  http://www.jpgn.org/pt/re/jpgn/abstract….
  Conclusions: These results confirm that meat as a complementary food for breast-fed infants can provide a rich source of dietary zinc that is well absorbed. The significant positive correlation between zinc intake and exchangeable zinc pool size suggests that increasing zinc intake positively affects metabolically available zinc.

  Why not pureed food at all:
  http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintro...
  It appears that a baby's general development keeps pace with the development of his ability to manage food in his mouth, and to digest it. A baby who is struggling to get food into his mouth is probably not quite ready to eat it.

  Pureed baby food is 'unnatural'
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/676279...
  She said children should be fed only with breast or formula milk for six months, then weaned onto solids to improve control over how much they ate.

  This could prevent babies becoming picky about food.

  [...]

  Solids best

  After six months, Mrs Rapley said babies were capable of taking food into their mouths and chewing it.

  Therefore, feeding them pureed food at this time could delay the development of chewing skills.

  Instead, she said, they should be given milk and solid pieces of food which they could chew.

  Mrs Rapley argued that babies fed pureed food had little control over how much food they ate, thus rendering them vulnerable to constipation, and running a risk that they would react by becoming fussy eaters later in life.

  She blamed the food industry for convincing parents that they should give children pureed food.

  She said: "Sound scientific research and government advice now agree that there is no longer any window of a baby's development in which they need something more than milk and less than solids."

  http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintro...
  The babies who participated in the research were allowed to begin at four months. But they were not able to feed themselves before six months. Some of the younger babies picked food up and took it to their mouths; some even chewed it, but none swallowed it. Their own development decided for them when the time was right. Part of the reason for this study was to show (based on a theory of self-feeding) that babies are not ready for solid food before six months. It seems that we have spent all these years working out that six months is the right age and babies have known it all along!

  It seems reasonable to predict that if parents choose to provide babies with the opportunity to pick up and eat solid food from birth they will still not be able to do it until around six months. The principle is the same as putting a newborn baby on the floor to play: he is being provided with the opportunity to walk but will not do so until about one year – because his own development stops him. But: everything depends on the baby being in control. Food must not be put into his mouth for him. Since it is very tempting to do this, it is probably safer to recommend that babies should not be given the opportunity to eat solid food before six months.

  http://www.borstvoeding.com/voedselintro...
  Many parents worry about babies choking. However, there is good reason to believe that babies are at less risk of choking if they are in control of what goes into their mouth than if they are spoon fed. This is because babies are not capable of intentionally moving food to the back of their throats until after they have learnt to chew. And they do not develop the ability to chew until after they have developed the ability to reach out and grab things. Thus, a very young baby cannot easily put himself at risk because he cannot get the food into his mouth in the first place. On the other hand, the action used to suck food off a spoon tends to take the food straight to the back of the mouth, causing the baby to gag. This means that spoon feeding has its own potential to lead to choking – and makes one wonder about the safety of giving lumpy foods off a spoon.

• 10 BABA BOOEY!!!! // Jun 27, 2008

  why bother with it?

  why not just give them fruits and veggies? i never gave rice cereal just went straight to fruits and veggies. no need for it in my opinion.

• 11 gabriels momma // Jun 27, 2008

  The only problem I have is it makes my son constipated so im starting him on oatmeal cereal instead. Don't worry it will be fine…..

• 12 rainwriterm // Jun 27, 2008

  The problem with rice cereal lies with the reason it was created and the reason it is often used. It is considered a perfect first food because it is bland, slightly fortified, and offers little risk for an undeveloped digestive system. Babies who are really too young for solids (under 5-6 months) are given rice cereal because it is bland, won't cause much of a bad reaction, and will help fill a hungry baby up. See the problem?

  If a baby isn't started on solids until he's physiologically ready (6-7 months self feeding) that baby can eat virtually anything that they can pick up and swallow. Waiting until 6 months means that a baby can handle steamed veggies, fruit, some meats, grains, etc. with out them needing to be mashed, and with out rice cereal. If a normal baby can't handle real food like this, that baby shouldn't be having ANY solids, including rice cereal. But, rice cereal is designed to trick the baby and get past all of baby's natural safeguards.

  Rice cereal lets parents start babies on solids way too early, offers little nutritional value, and is really processed. No healthy baby needs it. When commercial formulas weren't readily available and babies drank a formula of basically cows milk, they benefited from rice cereal. It is easy on a younger baby's system and provides some nutrition. Since virtually every baby has complete nutrition from breast milk or formula now, rice cereal isn't necessary at all.

  Make sense? Your baby is old enough or will be soon to self feed real foods. What benefit would rice cereal and baby food have then if she doesn't need them?

• 13 __Daisy__ // Jun 27, 2008

  Rice cereal is a good starter because it is virtually impossible to be alergic to it. It helps get the baby's tummy ready for solids and lets them see what food feels like. If you mix it with breastmilk it is the taste they love and are used to so it is easier for them to try it. It is just a nice neutral food. There should be no rush for starting solids, it is unnessesary to try to get them on normal food really young.

• 14 daniejay // Jun 27, 2008

  Rice cereal is just a primer for the real stuff. It has no taste, easily digestible, and very low chance of allergic reaction. Perfect for getting baby ready for solids.

  The only bad things I've heard concern mother's putting rice cereal in the bottles of very young infants. It can also be a little constipating for some babies. It was for my little guy but nothing major.

  Bottom line - I wasn't and still wouldn't be concerned.

  wanted to add - Giving a 6 month old anything that's not mashed is asking for trouble.

• 15 jowho // Jun 27, 2008

  There is a rice allergy and an intolerance. My daughter has an allergy that showed up two hours after eating and for the rest of the night. She had sneezes and congestion for days afterward. Called the company that made the cereal, the operator didn't know about it either. Just be aware of what and when, and note any reactions to any food. God bless.

• 16 momtojullex // Jun 27, 2008

  I wouldn't say there is anything particularly "wrong" with it….. there's just not much "right" with it. It's not BAD, it's just not GOOD.

  There are so many better options to give baby (read what mystic_eye posted… she was the only one that posted legit studies and she got thumbs down for it. I did notice that no one posted any sort of studies stating that rice cereal is actually good for baby….). I totally skipped the "baby cereal" with my baby. After doing research (like the stuff that mystic_eye posted), I realized there was no need for it. My baby went straight to regular foods- avocado, steamed veggies, cheerios.

  There's no need to be concerned if you've given your baby rice cereal…as long as you didn't give him cereal too early (anything other than breastmilk or formula should wait until after 6 months), it's fine. There are just better options.

• 17 gypsyghost // Jun 27, 2008

  I haven't really heard anything bad about it, the only thing horrible about it is that compared to baby food and even baby oatmeal, it is blah and has no flavor. It's a good starter in that it causes the least allergies, but my daughter didn't care for it. She eats oatmeal like a pro. It's just pretty bland.

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