Baby-led weaning can be a messy business Oscar Wong/Getty Images Babies who hand-feed themselves solid food appear to consume the same number of calories as those given puréed food from a spoon, suggesting that such “baby-led weaning” might offer no particular nutritional benefits or drawbacks. Despite its growing popularity, there is very little scientific understanding about baby-led weaning, says at the University of Colorado. To learn more, she and her colleagues asked the parents of 100 healthy, five-month-old babies living in the Denver, Colorado, area to report their babies’ food and milk intake for three days, as well as weighing the food on the plate before and after meals so they could determine how much the baby had consumed.
Read more Advertisement The parents provided these food intake reports again when the babies were nine and 12 months old. Matzeller’s team weighed and measured the babies at each of these points in time. Using the diet records, the researchers identified 35 infants who were on a baby-led weaning system, which they defined as one in which .
To compare groups, the team then selected 35 conventionally fed babies that matched those in the baby-led weaning group in terms of race, sex and whether they were breastfed or given formula. Matzeller presented her findings in Chicago, Illinois, on 30 June at the . The researchers found no significant differences in daily energy intake – as defined by the number of calories consumed per kilogram.