Some babies just refuse to eat meat; Some families not only want adults to be vegetarian, but also want their babies to join the vegetarian team for reasons of faith or food safety. For these vegetarian babies, parents are inevitably worried that vegetarianism will cause malnutrition and even affect growth and development. In this regard, Shen Zhenyu, deputy director of the Pediatrics Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, suggested that vegetarian babies should pay attention to supplementing eggs and milk. In order to ensure that there is no shortage of nutrition, the ingredients in the daily diet should be rich, which means that mothers and grandmothers who are responsible for cooking should be more careful. In addition, parents should pay close attention to the indicators of baby's growth and development.
Egg milk vegetarian is better than "vegetarian"
It is understood that vegetarianism can be divided into two types: veganism (not eating animal foods, including eggs, milk and plants with volatile smells, such as onions and garlic) and egg-milk vegetarianism (adding eggs and dairy products appropriately). Shen Zhenyu believes that growing babies have a great demand for nutrition. For example, meat, eggs and milk are rich in protein. Although many vegetarians also contain protein, such as soybean, it belongs to plant protein. Compared with plant protein, animal protein is better than plant protein and is more easily absorbed and utilized by baby's body. Moreover, the current medical research has confirmed that soybean milk is not suitable as a staple food for infants under one year old. Whether children over one year old and before puberty can drink a lot of soy milk for a long time is still controversial. Some people think that estrogen-like substances contained in soybean milk may interfere with the gonadal development of girls before puberty.
Shen Zhenyu suggested that if a mother wants her baby to be a vegetarian, it is best to choose egg milk as a vegetarian, instead of vegetarian, because besides protein, egg milk also contains many nutrients beneficial to the baby's growth and development, such as calcium and DHA.
Baby doesn't eat meat, so pay more attention to diet.
Meat contains many nutrients necessary for baby's growth and development. Babies who don't eat meat should be more "particular" in their daily diet-the ingredients should be richer and bigger.
Shen Zhenyu explained that taking iron as an example, vegetarian babies, as "big producers of iron", lack meat, but they can promote the absorption of iron in plant foods through the intake of vitamin C and other organic acids. When the mother is cooking, spinach, sesame seeds, eggs and black food (such as black fungus and black rice) will appear in the baby's diet from time to time.
Take calcium as an example. Milk is high in calcium. In addition, beans, many vegetables and whole grains also contain more calcium. In addition to encouraging babies to drink milk, mothers should always include vegetables with high calcium content, such as corn, soybeans, cauliflower and cabbage. In addition, sour vinegar can promote the absorption of iron and calcium, and you can add some old vinegar or lemon juice when cooking.
Vegetarian food seems to be less delicious than meat, so mothers should pay more attention when cooking vegetarian food, which can better arouse the baby's appetite. For example, when cooking broccoli, potatoes and other vegetables, you can add cheese or coconut milk, which is nutritious and delicious.
Generally speaking, vegetarian food is bigger than other foods. For example, in the same protein, a few pieces of chicken are enough, while a vegetarian baby needs to eat a small bowl of rice and green beans to supplement it. Baby's appetite is not big, try to avoid those foods without nutrition, so as to leave enough room for nutritious vegetarian food. Vitamin D can promote the baby's absorption of calcium, which mainly exists in meat. Shen Zhenyu reminded parents that vegetarian babies should keep an hour of outdoor activities every day, and make their skin synthesize more vitamin D through sunlight to meet the needs of physical development.
Closely monitor the growth and development of vegetarian babies
It is precisely because the vegetarian baby's diet lacks nutrients that parents should pay more attention to the baby's growth and development indicators. Shen Zhenyu suggested that it is best for babies before the age of 3 to go to the hospital for child health care every three months, and children over the age of 3 can go there once every six months. For babies over 3 years old, if parents are unwilling to do child care, they can choose to monitor at home and measure their height and weight once every six months. According to the normal growth and development progress, the baby's annual height growth should be 6-7 cm from 2 years old to puberty, and the annual weight gain should be 2 kg. If the baby's annual height growth is less than 4 cm, parents should take the baby to see a doctor and ask the doctor to help assess and find out the reasons for the baby's stunting.
For babies under 5 years old, Shen Zhenyu suggested that parents can measure their baby's upper arm circumference every 6 months. The upper arm circumference can roughly reflect the baby's nutritional status. Generally speaking, the baby's upper arm circumference is greater than 13.5 cm, indicating that the nutritional status is good. If it is lower than 12.5 cm, it may indicate malnutrition.
skill
The baby doesn't like to eat some kind of meat, so mother doesn't have to worry.
Shen Zhenyu said that in the outpatient clinic, they often meet anxious mothers and ask, "What if the baby just refuses to eat a certain kind of meat?" For example, a mother recently said that the baby refused to eat fish. Mother tried all kinds of cooking methods, even chopping fish and mixing it with other meat, or hiding the fish at the bottom of the bowl, which could be found by the baby and resolutely resisted. Mother is in a hurry. She said that eating fish is good for children's physical development and intellectual development. What if the baby just doesn't eat?