Cereal and Iron - What's the Deal?

[liacarmen]

I've noticed a lot of posts about cereal and babies not liking it, it not agreeing with them, docs wanting them to eat it for the iron, etc. We're just starting with solids and I haven't given any cereal because I've heard conflicting opinions, and am still deciding what to do with them - some say they're losing their iron reserves by 6 months and need the supplemented cereal (or another supplemented iron source), some say because it's finely processed not much original nutrition remains. Then I read on Kellymom about their being iron in breastmilk, and while it's not much it's very easily absorbed by baby's bodies - therefore the iron supplemented foods are not necessary.

What do other moms think? It feels counterintuitive to me that babies would need supplemental iron, if there truly is enough digestible iron in BM - but if that's true, what's all the excitement about cereal? I asked our doctor what they thought and they said that cereal is fine either way, which wasn't exactly the response I was looking for.

Thanks for your feedback!

[Samuel's mum]

I've read a bit about it and decided not to do cereal with Josie. If I do use any fortified cereal at all then I will mix it with other purees as I did with Sam e.g a very thin apple puree with some cereal mixed in. But I might not even do that. Rice cereal by itself does not seem very tasty to me and with ebm it starts to get digested by the enzymes and goes weird and runnier in the bowl. Sam maybe had it by itself 3 times. Then mixed in other purees until around 8 months when he stopped having all purees and moved solely onto finger foods (turned out he was doing his own version of BLW but it was a bit surprising at the time!).

Iron levels in bm are lower than in formula but are digested very effectively. The view that baby cereal is essential comes from a time when it was not understood how bioavailable the iron in bm was.
Additional iron is needed at some point for sure. 6 months is the absolute earliest when this becomes an issue for the vast majority of babies. There are studies of exclusively breastfeeding babies at 7-8 months (i.e. no solids or anything else) and their iron levels were not lower than their peers who had started solids. The big exception to this is premature babies as they miss the iron reserves laid down by the mother in the final trimester and will need to have additional iron from 6 months and maybe even supplements.

With Josie I'm going to give her iron from other sources (tastier ones!). Like:
Spinach (Sam loved 'pop-eye pasta' - the Annabel Karmel recipe with spinach and cream cheese.)
dried figs and apricots - which you can soak and whizz.
dried beans, baked beans
oily fish
wholegrain bread

as part of a balanced diet.


And also worth knowing Vitamin C sources consumed at the same time improve iron absorption (particulaly when the iron source is a plant). And cooking and baking in iron cookware provides a source. And when levels of iron are lower, iron absorption is more effective (unecessary iron supplements can actually be bad news)!