Ive been hearing alot of scary stuff about the safety of honey and peanuts/peanut butter etc. during pregnancy. I know that babies can't have the honey, and that the risks for peanut allergies in infants increases if you consume alot of peanut products while pregnant. How do you know what is safe? It seems like everytime I think Ive balanced my diet, something else pops up as a no-no.
I don't think there's anything wrong with honey... but it's not good for children, up to a certain age 4 maybe? As well peanuts are a big allergy food so they tell you not to eat peanuts while you're pregnant in some countries. I don't know any other reasons.
honey can have botulism spores. i read some article in a beekeeping magazine that made it seem like it's incredibly rare that there would be enough spores to actually hurt an infant (like 1 in a million type of thing), but the fact is that infants arent able to kill off the botulism spores if they're there. so the rule of thumb is no honey til baby is a year old. if you're pregnant, your digestive juices are plenty strong enough to kill the minute amount of spores that are probably not even there in the first place, so have at 'er. just remember that honey is a *sugar* and is pretty devoid of nutrient content, and when you're gestating, all those nutrients count! now the second one: peanuts peanuts are breeding grounds for molds. there's a nasty compound called aflatoxin that's found in peanuts, it's incredibly carcinogenic, so that's a reason to stay away from peanuts right there also peanuts are crop rotated with cotton, so they're grown in soil that's full of pesticides and herbicides that are legal to use on non-food items. gross, nasty, dangerous to health. dont want to eat that, ykwim? re peanut allergy: there have been studies linking soy formula to peanut allergy. so, breastfeed your baby and stay as far away from soy formula as you can!
Both my daughters drank soy formula when they couldn't be breastfed and they don't have ANY allergies. Most pediatricians recommend soy formula over regular formula because regular is made from cow's milk and kids shouldn't consume cow's milk until atleast 1 year due to their delicate digestive systems. And vegans who can't breastfeed are not going to give their kids cow's milk. Durr. Telling women to avoid any formulas is dangerous, not all women can breastfeed. Some have hard time producing adequate amounts or even decent quality milk and some women just can't produce a drop. I had breast reduction surgery last year, the doctors told me that breastfeeding would probably be impossible because they removed most of my milk glands(my large breasts were unfortunately mostly glandular rather than fat...one reason why they didn't decrease whenever I lost weight). Even Maggie doesn't promote zero formula and she's resident breast-nazi . IMHO, allergies are simply piss-poor luck.
Um, cynical otter, where's your evidence? Soy formula is a WORSE allergen than milk based. I haven't had a single pediatrician tell me to put Moire on Soy. All actually poopooed the idea.
All the reading I did said this: Honey: okay to have when pregnant, as long is it is pasturized. So, that means you can have the hard stuff, but not the liquid squeezable kind. Just read the label, it will say if its pasturized or not. Peanuts: I ate a lot of peanut butter when pregnant. The book and doctors and nurses I talked to said it was a good protein source, especially if you don't eat meat or just don't eat much of it. I was a veggie for years, and still don't like meat, so peanut butter on 7 whole grain toast was breakfast almost every day. Better the little one have a peanut allergy than have a problem due to low protein in utero. I don't know if you know this, but there are other foods to stay away from. Some are obvious but some not so much. For example, you should stay away from Feta cheese, unless its pasturized... all soft cheese are a no-no unless it says on the package that its pasturized.
cynical, i'd like to see you back up what you said with some facts. you're talking from an emotional place and of course you're going to be defensive because you've already made some decisions that are going to affect your health and the future health of your daughters. i'd like to have it on record that i think what you've said is utterly ridiculous, and i'm going to leave it at that. articles about soy formula and health: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...=Display&dopt=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=12919490
The hydrogenated oils found in most peanut butters today are extremely bad for you. Trans fatty acids, or hydrogenated oils should definatley be something were working towards removing from our diet. Their actually being made illegal in certain parts of the world. Even oreos recently removed hydrogenated oils from their recipe. Start reading food labels more often...and avoid high frcutose corn syrup!!! If I were you, I would give the hydrogenated oils away, or even throw them away. Try organic almond or cashew butter that doesn't have added oil in it!!!! I've also heard peanuts are very hybridized and highly mycotoxic being root crops, and their very prone to feeding bad bacteria in the body...I mean, theres worse things people are eating, I'm sure... But peanuts aren't the best things ever. Tree nuts(almonds, cashews, walnuts, pine nuts, brazil nuts, filberts, etc..) and seeds(sesame, sunflower...andespecially hemp, flax, and pumpkin) are much better alternatives. Almost all of these nuts and seeds have good fats in them. About soy formulas: I would say experimenting with herbs and certain foods that stimulate breast milk flow is a much better choice than just resorting to *any formula, soy or dairy which are both poor choioces imo. Theres ways to make milk happen...Nature designed us to survive that way.
nice post avocado noni. in my universe, we only used natural peanut butter, so i forgot that the nasty brain damaging hydrogenated stuff even exists. you dont want your baby's brain to be taking up that stuff ps, if you're going to eat honey (and it's really just empty calories, so i dont recommend it), at least eat raw local honey. it's going to have a bit of pollen in it. eating local, in season bee pollen can actually help prevent the hayfever type of allergies. but better yet, skip the honey and have some pollen instead. (unless of course, you're allergic to bees)
My evidence? My two HEALTHY daughters, my HEALTHY cousin(who was also on Isomil as an infant), my HEALTHY sister(my mom used soy formula to supplement her breast milk), my two HEALTHY cousins. I have physical evidence all around me every single day. Might I note that we all share(d) the same pediatrician. He was my doctor as a child, my sister's doctor, the doctor of all my grandparent's adopted kids and their offspring, my cousins, and my daughters'. I'd like to see this irrefutible evidence that soy formula is the worst..because apparently, it isn't and my kids' doctor swears by it. When I was having problems breastfeeding, he told me to use Isomil. All of the moms in my family used Isomil when unable to breastfeed. If you don't want to give your baby soy formula...don't, but don't go around spreading misinformation. Especially if you've never actually tried it before.
i was a soy babe: adopted and allergic to dairy (like that kept me away from it later). While I don't LIKE soy milk now, I can drink it. I breast fed my son, and I ate a lot of (natural ) peanut butter and I did have honey. No probs on his end, except he doesn't like PB at 14. Except in Thai food! If it concerns you, look at aguave nectar, barley syrup or rice syrup. Black strap molasses actually has iron. I've no idea how much, though. I'm sure someone here does.
Yeah, the problems with honey do not go through the milk, so mom can have all she wants. In different parts of the country (and world) doctots tend to have their own "favorites" when it comes to types of formula. Some like Soy and others prefer Dairy, while others put too many babies on very expensive "Predigested Forumla" like Alimentium or Pregestamil. (Blech, smells like puke. And although is occasionally neccesary, some docs use it TOO much.) Druminmama, when I was a baby, if the baby couldn't "take" milk based formula, (and many of us couldn't but it was just ignored, so, logically we were just put on Cow's Milk at 3 months or so , I am surprised I still have a working GI system) there was NO soy alternative. Guess what they used? MEAT based formula. Oh, Lord, it was nasty. We were glad when soy finally came on the market, I had the displeasure of baby sitting a few kids on the Meat Formula. It smelled about as sweet as it sounds. Blech. And it had this color, that was kind of......grayish.......brown. Ug. Things are better than they were, for the babies who need Human Milk Substitutes, at least we can say that.
My mom wasn't breastfed either. Her mom was battling breast cancer at the time & had... inverted breasts?!? Anyway, she couldn't produce milk & the doctor said it wouldn't be healthy if she could so Mom & her 6 siblings were all raised on unpasteurized cows milk. Mom says she remembers the bottles for her younger siblings coming into the house labelled "WARNING; not suitable for human consumption!" I am so relieved that there are better options out there now! love, mom
Oh, my. But, yes, cancer is one good reason NOT to breastfeed. Not only does the treatment cause terrible side effects (and may kill a baby) but many babies will reject a breast with cancer in it. Was your grandma OK? Or did the cancer take her? I have a really good freind battling breast cancer right now. My second friend with it. We're only in our 40s, it's so freaking scary.
meat formula. great. I read this an hour before I have to meet some parents ...at a mc Barf's. I will not throw up...I will not throw up... thanks, mags...;P
just to put my two cents in, my doctor said no honey before age one. but when you're pregnant and you want a sweetener, I say go for honey as apposed to refined sugar. and I ate a lot of peanuts while I was pregnant. I think when you're pregnant, as long as it's a whole food and preferably organic/natural, it's fine. just stay away from or try to avoid overprocessed foods and additives, and especially hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated ANYTHING. I think honey and peanuts are no good to give to children under a year, for obvious reasons: they're just completely unnecessary. no need to sweeten anything for a -1 yr old and they don't even have enough teeth by then to chew peanuts. not to mention the fact that they can cause bad reactions.
WHAT?! this is one horror of a thread! and they were told to give these bottles (of what?) to their children?!
