Parents wrongly advised on weaning - survey

PARENTS IN Ireland may be getting inappropriate advice from some health professionals about weaning their babies on to solid food, new research has found.

Official guidelines here currently recommend that breastfed babies should be introduced to solid foods at six months of age, while the age is four months for formula-fed infants.

But as many as two-thirds of parents in Ireland wean their babies earlier, according to Dr Mary Rose Sweeney from Dublin City University’s School of Nursing, who, with Claire Allcutt from University College Dublin, surveyed attitudes, knowledge and advice about weaning among relevant health professionals.

Their findings have just been published in the journal BMC Public Health.

Analysing responses from 185 health professionals including GPs, public health nurses, practice nurses and community dietitians, they found that 68 per cent were confident in the advice they were giving, but there were varying levels of knowledge about weaning recommendations.

“Breastfed infants are being advised to wean earlier than recommended by official guidelines by the majority [67 per cent] of health professionals sampled,” said Dr Sweeney.

Only 7 per cent of GPs provided appropriate literature to parents on infant weaning and many GPs and practice nurses “had a reliance on materials provided by commercial sources” rather than publications from the Health Service Executive (HSE), according to the survey.

And while there was generally good awareness of avoiding wheat as first food for a baby, only four respondents referred to the developmental readiness of the baby as a factor when giving advice about when to start weaning.

“The study highlights a training need in this area for health professionals routinely engaging with parents as well as the need for the development and distribution of suitable training materials based on best evidence from the scientific literature,” said Dr Sweeney.