Weaning Food Practice and Assessment in Children with Iron Deficiency Anemia

Kim, Boo Young; Choi, Eun Hye; Kang, Sung Kil; Jun, Yong Hoon; Hong, Young Jin; Kim, Soon Ki

Abstract

PURPOSE
Recently, the favorable merits of breast feeding have received widespread attention and the number of breast feeding children is increasing. We investigated the weaning practices between breast feeding infants and non-breast feeding infants with respect to iron deficiency anemia (IDA).
METHODS
Between March 2006 and January 2009, we surveyed 70 parents, the children of whom had been medically diagnosed with IDA, and 140 parents, the children of whom did not have IDA, about how they feed their children and how much they know about the weaning process. The infants and children were 6~36 months of age and attended the Inha University hospital.
RESULTS
IDA patients started weaning later than non-IDA patients. Also, breast feeding in IDA patients was more frequent than in non-IDA patients (82% vs. 30%). The breast feeding group began weaning at approximately 6.4 months of age, which was statistically meaningfully compared to non-breast feeding infants. There were no differences in knowledge between the two groups of parents.
CONCLUSION
According to our research, we assume that if weaning begins at 6 months, we cannot supply sufficient iron to meet the infant's needs, which increase sharply around 6 months of age because of depletion of stored iron. Thus, infants need to initiate weaning from breast feeding at 4 months of age to furnish an ample amount of iron or take iron-containing supplements. These methods would be expected to prevent IDA in breast feeding infants.