The Keelung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital yesterday said that a research team found that infants only fed breast milk were at higher risk of vitamin D and iron deficiency.
Breast milk is the best source of nutrition for newborns, but some mothers have reported that their breastfed children appeared to be smaller than others their age, department of pediatrics physician Liao Sui-ling (廖穗綾) said.
The team studied 630 infants — 191 infants only fed breast milk, and 439 infants fed baby formula or a combination of breast milk and formula — to observe their growth, including height, weight and head circumference.
It also evaluated their nutritional levels by conducting a yearly blood test from one month old to three years old.
The growth curves of children only fed breast milk for more than four months fell mostly within the standard range for one-year-olds, although a higher percentage of the children fell in the lowest percentiles for height, Liao said.
The study showed that 21.6 percent of the children only fed breast milk had heights in the lowest percentiles at one year old, 19 percent at two years old and 22.9 percent at three years old, while 13.1 percent of children in the other study group had heights in the lowest percentiles at one year old, 9.6 percent at two years old and 18.2 percent at three years old.
The blood tests conducted at age one found that 34 percent of the children who were only fed breast milk had iron deficiency anemia and 60 percent had vitamin D deficiency — nine and six times higher respectively than in the other group, Liao said.
On a questionnaire, the mothers responded that up to 80 percent of them did not take vitamin D or iron supplements during breastfeeding, she said.
Vitamin D and iron are vital for growth and development in infants, she said, adding that vitamin D affects calcium absorption and skeletal growth, while iron affects muscle growth.
Although children can be breastfed up to two years old, parents should introduce solid foods at the age of four months and children should progress to mostly eating solid food by the age of one, Liao said.
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