Study: Day care babies gain more weight
By Megan Rauscher
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Infants cared for by someone other than mom or dad are more apt to be exposed to “unfavorable” feeding practices and to gain more weight during their first year of life, a new study shows, which could contribute to childhood weight problems.
“Parents may want to have enough communication with child care providers about when, what and how to feed their babies during their stay in day care, which is important to avoid potential risk of overfeeding or underfeeding at home,” Dr. Juhee Kim of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told Reuters Health.
Kim and co-investigator Dr. Karen E. Peterson of Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, analyzed data on child care arrangements, feeding practices, and weight gain collected for 8,150 infants who were 9 months old. More than half of these children received regular child care from someone other than a parent.
The researchers found that the roughly 40 percent of infants placed in child care when they were younger than 3 months of age were less likely to have been breastfed and were more likely to begin to eat solid foods earlier than infants cared for by their parents.
There is evidence from other studies to suggest that breastfeeding may lower a child’s risk of becoming overweight and that the early introduction of solid foods may increase the risk.
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