Families Education Vegan and Vegetarian Weaning

Baby and Child Nutritionist, Charlotte Stirling-Reed, is now running an Online Weaning Course, a complete step-bystep guide for parents and caregivers to introduce solids to their baby. Find out more at www.srnutrition.co.uk/online-weaningcourse.

Many parents ask about raising a baby or a toddler on a vegetarian/vegan or plantbased diet. It’s become much more popular in recent years and for many reasons too. If you’re wanting to raise your little one vegan or vegetarian, please know that it’s absolutely safe and practical to do, but you will have to think about and plan meals a little more and you might need to think about supplements for your baby too.

It’s always worthwhile getting some oneto-one support if your little one is going to be having no dairy, fish or animal products, just to check that you are offering them all that they need each day.

There aren’t really any differences in the early stages of weaning when it comes to offering vegetarian or vegan diets to babies. Starting with Veg Led Weaning - which I talk about a lot on my Online Weaning Course - is the same, and a great way to start all babies on their weaning journey. After those first tastes, it’s about exploring a wide variety of other foods with your baby, gradually and gently and this is essentially just done without the inclusion of meat and/or other animal products.

When you’re removing these foods though, it’s important to know that you DO need to replace them with foods that contain the same nutrients as the excluded food options. For example, meat and dairy foods are often a good source of:

• Iron

• Omega-3 Fatty Acids

• Protein

• Iodine

• Vitamin B12

• Calcium

Foods that contain these are fairly easy to find though, but it’s important to offer these regularly in baby’s diet once they are established on solid foods and having three meals a day. Generally, this means offering “protein and iron rich” foods (see below) around three times a day for vegetarian and vegan children.

Foods that typically include these nutrients in varied amounts include:

• Fortified dairy alternatives - these usually/ should include iodine, B vitamins (including B12), calcium and vitamin D.

• Beans, lentils, pulses

• Ground nuts and ground seeds

• Tofu, Quorn, soya beans

• Olive oil and seed oils

If your baby is vegan, you might need to think about choosing more fortified foods and/ or having a supplement containing some of these nutrients, especially iodine, omega-3 and vitamin B12.

For more information about these foods, nutrients baby needs and everything you need to know about weaning your baby check out Charlotte’s Online Weaning Course and you can find out more information at www.srnutrition.co.uk/ online-weaning-course/

NHS to use test that prevents babies going deaf

A rapid test that can help preserve the hearing of newborn babies is set to be used by NHS hospitals.

Using a cheek swab, the test can identify in less than half an hour whether a critically ill baby admitted to intensive care has a gene change that could result in permanent hearing loss if they are treated with a common emergency antibiotic, Gentamicin.

While Gentamicin is used to safely treat approximately 100,000 babies a year, one in 500 babies carry the gene change that can lead to permanent hearing loss when given the antibiotic.

The new test means that babies found to have the genetic variant can be given an alternative antibiotic and could save the hearing of 200 babies in England every year.

The test will be trialled in a range of hospitals before it gets final approval.

More info: bit.ly/NHSBabyTest

More paid leave for parents of premature babies

Parents could take up to an extra twelve weeks of paid leave if their child is born prematurely, as part of a new law.

Both parents would qualify for one week's extra help - in addition to existing maternity and paternity leave and pay entitlements - for every seven days their baby was in neonatal care.

The Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Bill is in its final stages of becoming law.

A baby is considered to be premature if it is born before the 37th week of pregnancy and one in seven UK newborns needs to be placed in a specialist hospital unit. It is possible for a baby to survive when born at about 24 weeks of pregnancy - but the earlier it is, the more complications there could be.

More info: bit.ly/PrematurePay