Are Bottle-Fed Babies Introduced to Solid Foods Sooner than Breastfed Babies - Essay Example

"Are Bottle-Fed Babies Introduced to Solid Foods Sooner than Breastfed Babies?" is a delightful example of a paper on child development.
Evidence that is gained from scientific theories and researches to assist in clinical decision-making is termed Evidence-based Medicine or Evidence-based practice. To study or discuss any topic, evidence-based medicine is regarded as the gold standard for clinical practice, but there are also some ethical, cost, time, generalized publication bias, population, clinical experience, and political criticism limitations. The researches and theories are used to enhance the practices and better outcomes. Several theories and researches are available, but the question always remains about how far and to which population the results may be generalized (AAACN, 2011).

Many theories and researches are linked in quantitative and qualitative studies about bottle-fed babies and breastfed babies, and define that bottle-fed babies are introduced to solid foods sooner than breastfed babies.   

Breast-Fed Babies

Young babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck milk from female human breasts and swallow milk. Breastfeed is always recommended to mothers for 6 months or more rather than feeding children through bottles or giving them other solid food. Human breast milk is the healthiest milk as it is stable and resistant to gastrointestinal juices and enzymes; thus, it gives protection to the digestive tract of the newborn infant (Jatsyk, Kuvaeva, & Gribakin, 2008, pp. 246-249).

 Breastfeeding is a naturally evolved method. In every culture and throughout the globe, breastfeeding is the most widely used method and has major demographic importance (Howie & McNeilly, 1985, pp. 545-557).

Bottle-Fed babies

A baby bottle is typically used for infants and young children as an alternative to breastfeeding. World Health Organization discouraged baby bottles and encouraged breastfeeding. The research has shown that breastfed babies show slightly higher general body activity than bottle-fed babies (Davis, Sears, & Mill, 1948, pp. 549-558).

Research has also shown that gastrointestinal illnesses are found significantly less in babies of 13 weeks or more than bottle-fed babies on birth to 13 weeks. “Several types of research indicate that children who were breastfed for less than 13 weeks found same gastrointestinal illness as those in bottle-fed infants” (Howie, Forsyth, Ogston, Ann Claek, & Florey, 1990, pp. 11-16).

Theories and Researches

Infants are usually introduced to solid foods after 6 months. The guideline to introduce solid foods after 6 months is given by World Health Organization, and this is a guideline according to the maturity of the internal digestive system of babies.

Evidence-based practice has shown that bottle-fed babies are introduced to solid foods sooner than the breastfed babies, 10.6 weeks for boys while 13.9 weeks for girls. The introduction of solid foods to breast-fed babies is found at the age of 14.9 weeks in the case of boys while 17.4 weeks for girls (Whitehead, Paul, & Ahmed, 2008, pp. 14-23).

Conclusion

There is no hard and fast rule as different practices happen to be productive in many cases. The introduction of solid food to babies at any age differs from culture to culture. Similarly, the ratio of bottle-fed babies and breastfed babies varies in several societies. Breastfeeding plays a vital role in preventing various illnesses as compared to bottle-fed babies. The research and theories reveal that the introduction to solid food in infants is found sooner in bottle-fed babies than the breast-fed infants.