At how many months can premature babies be given complementary foods? Should complementary foods be added to premature babies be delayed?

At how many months can a premature baby be given complementary food? Many premature babies are thin and weak. Is it better to give them complementary food earlier or later? Let's talk about it in detail. Does it need to be delayed to give complementary food to premature babies?

How many months can premature babies be given complementary food?

The best age to add complementary food is 4-6 months [corrected age = actual age - (40 weeks - gestational age) / 4) For example: the actual age of the baby is 6 months, and the baby was born at 32 weeks, then the corrected age = 6-(40-32)/4 = 4 months] Generally, when the baby is old enough to eat complementary food, he will stare at adults eating, swallow, and drool. This is the best time to add complementary food to the baby, that is, the baby's corrected age is in the period of 4-6 months. It is best to start adding complementary food with pure rice nutritious rice flour. If the baby refuses to eat complementary food, stop for a while to avoid anorexia in the future. If the baby can accept it, eat it for 2 weeks and observe whether there are problems such as diarrhea and eczema. If there are no problems, you can gradually eat vegetable and fruit puree~

How to add complementary food to premature babies

The age at which complementary food is added to premature infants varies from person to person, which is related to their developmental maturity level. Premature infants with small gestational age should be introduced relatively late, generally not earlier than 4 months of corrected age, and no later than 6 months of corrected age. The order of introduction is also between the corrected age and the actual age. Adding complementary food too early will affect the amount of milk or cause indigestion, while adding it too late will affect the absorption of multiple nutrients and cause eating difficulties. The principle of adding complementary food is gradual, from one to multiple, from less to more, and from thin to thick. Premature babies need to learn how to eat, such as chewing and swallowing function training, and coordination of oral muscle movements. However, within 1 year old, milk is the baby's staple food, and the amount of complementary food should not be too much, but there should be more variety, so that sufficient and balanced nutrients can be obtained and a good habit of not being picky about food can be developed.

Reasonable addition of complementary food

When adding complementary foods to premature babies, reference should be made to the degree of physiological development, that is, the number of months after birth minus the number of months of premature birth.

For example, if the baby is now six months old, but was originally born two months earlier, then his developmental age should be four months (six minus two). This means that the functional maturity of his organs is equivalent to that of a normal full-term baby of four months, so his diet should be roughly the same. Normal full-term babies also start to add complementary foods after three or four months.

After 4 months of age, you can use egg yolk as baby food. The iron stored in the body of a newborn baby mainly comes from the mother, and the amount is very limited, only enough for blood production for four to five months after birth. Premature babies and multiple babies get even less iron from their mothers. The younger the gestational age and the more fetuses, the less iron content in the body.