Nutrition in the first year of life

Nutrition in the first year of life is important because of the premise made last time, namely that the child has to grow and that all organs grow with him during the first year of life and that for some organs, particularly the noble ones, growth is exponential.

So the key point is to ensure a range of nutrients that are essential for development. Nutrients means not only carbohydrates, proteins and fats, but a whole series of factors that are essential for an optimal state of health.

The paediatricians of the past, i.e. at the end of the nineteenth century, were primarily biochemists, to give an idea of how the situation should be approached, i.e. with a nutritional balance sheet, but in recent decades the nutritional aspect, the calculation of calories, and the calculation of intake have been lost from sight.

In order to be able to monitor a child’s diet, therefore, a great deal of attention must be paid to ensuring that the child does not grow up without an adequate supply of nutrients. If necessary, therefore, it is always advisable to consider getting the help of a nutritionist specialised in early childhood, so as to take care of your child’s diet from birth to pre-school age.

Do you want to find out more about this? Well, then we can only advise you to continue reading our article, because we are going to go through everything you need to know in a proper guide to your child’s nutritional needs. We hope you enjoy your reading!

Infant and young child feeding from birth to pre-school age: the generalities of the subject

In order to be able to talk about children’s nutrition we need to establish a food and energy requirement which varies according to the age of the child.

At first glance, it can be seen that the younger, and perhaps premature, the baby is, the higher the energy intake must be, with the amount of kcal/kg/day decreasing appreciably from the early stages of life to the later ones.

It is precisely in the first 12 months, which is the period we are particularly interested in, that the intake is particularly relevant. It is logical that, in the meantime, in the first 12 months the child has a low weight compared to a child of school age. It does not weigh 20 kg, it weighs at most 5 kg, so it will need a different intake of nutrients than one might expect.

Therefore, the external supply must provide for the harmonious, constant, progressive development of the organism and of the different apparatuses, considering that we have a series of physiological variations in the size of the whole organism, changes in proportions – we saw last time how the proportions are completely different in the different paediatric ages, changes in shape, in motor skills and the acquisition of reproductive capacity.

From a practical point of view during the first year of life the birth weight is in principle tripled. This serves us to have a general indication of a state of well-being because the child who has acquired the weight it needs to acquire over time is in a correct situation. When this happens, one can be reassured that one’s baby is feeding well.

Feeding a newborn baby

Let’s start by saying that, from the point of view of a baby’s health, breast milk is certainly an unparalleled choice.

Breast milk contains practically everything. Comfortable, complete, useful food. It has no competitors! In the first 6 months of life it is absolutely essential.
It also serves to consolidate a psychological relationship in the mother-baby dyad, because it creates contact, an exchange of sensations and emotions linked to breastfeeding and important.

Mother’s milk is a set of unique elements that, although biochemical and industrial research has tried to find situations that could resemble elements of mother’s milk, it has not succeeded.
There are nutritional components, macro and micro nutrients, as well as antibodies that the baby may need, precisely because its immune system is not strong enough in its first few months.

However, not all women are able to breastfeed their babies, which is why artificial milk is often used, although it is a good alternative from the point of view of healthy nutrition.
In many other cases, however, the baby has certain deficits in terms of nutrients, so he or she may need a special milk that includes these.

This is why there are special milks, which are adapted milks, which have those characteristics that we were talking about to look as much like mother’s milk as possible, but are for special categories of children. We have:

• Special milks for premature babies, where for example the amount of protein is increased;
• Special milks for children who have a metabolic disease such as phenylketonuria, i.e. special milk without phenylalanine;
• Special milks for children with a food allergy to milk.