PSA for veggie parents - Don't wean your babies on rice & soy milk, it can harm them!

[astro]

Spoiled Milk: Alternatives to cow’s milk—like rice and soy—are lacking in essential nutrients

May 8, 2006 issue - In 1997, Kelley Scanlon, an epidemiologist, and her colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control received a call from Georgia health authorities with disturbing news. The parents of two infants had weaned their babies onto soy- and rice-based milk substitutes, even though both can lack crucial nutrients found in fortified cow’s milk and formula. As a result, the children were suffering from diseases that had all but disappeared in the United States: rickets (a severe deficiency of vitamin D) and kwashiorkor (protein deficiency). Without intervention, the infants could have grown up with bone or brain damage

[Ferret_Herder]

I’m trying to figure out why it took them 9 years to write up a report on something that seems to be pretty freaking rare and which the companies involved warn against anyway.

[WhyNot]

The problem here is with parents who use the fake milks as their babies’ primary nutrition. If your baby is eating a wide variety of healthy foods, then soy or rice milk is just fine as a beverage. No baby should be taken off breast milk or formula before 12 months of age unless their doctor has indicated otherwise.

WhyBaby’s doctor and the city’s home health care nurse have both recommened rice milk, as they are confident she’s eating well otherwise and cow’s milk makes her snorky. I haven’t made the switch yet, because she still drinks an awful lot of formula, but soon we will.