It’s a very simple question. Yet it can cause so much family conflict among the readers of this newsletter. There are parents who don’t like salt who are enraged by their grandma’s addition of salt to her mashed sweet potato. Then there are those who favor salt and grumble at their sister-in-law’s insistence on a separate meal without salt for her baby girl of 11 months.
I’ve been on both sides. My oldest child consumed mostly purees with no salt during the first year of their lives while my youngest consumed what we ate until four months old. He ate salt and everything else.
Who is the right person? Why is that? Let’s investigate. (As an aside: Feeding Littles is a great resource for this as well as various other kid-food subjects).
What’s the Question?
I can see this question being asked in two different ways. One is “Does my baby need salt?” To which the answer is Yes, however not with added salt. The formula and breastmilk contain sodium in these products. Humans (babies and everyone) require sodium in order to live. However, perhaps not surprisingly evolution has infused breastmilk with enough sodium so that infants do not require more. Therefore, you don’t have for salt.
But, I believe the one that most of us are asking is not the same. It’s ” Can my baby have salt?” This is a question that’s relevant due to at least two factors. One, because when you want your child to eat what you’re eating (either because you’re using a baby-led approach to weaning or you’re lazy as I am) it’s a lot more work to make salted-free versions. Also, salt enhances the taste of food and your baby may like it more if the vegetables contained some salt.
We’ll then dive into the second question.
Why No Salt?
There are two primary reasons that parents are warned regarding salt: toxicity of salt and long-term health risks.
First of all one: an excessive amount of salt may be hazardous — and sometimes fatal especially for infants and small children. It is the same for adults, however, infants and kids are more at risk due to the fact that they have less mature kidneys. Kidneys that are less mature have less capacity to handle salt.
The overdose of salt is known as “salt toxicity.” However, the fact is that while it’s an actual biological problem, however, it’s not what you’d experience when you salt mashed potatoes even if your grandmother likes the taste. They’re very salty. Salt toxicity in children and infants (as is described herein in this report) is usually caused by medical mistakes (e.g. the excess sodium found in infant IV) or abuse of children. The issue isn’t a convincing reason to not lightly salt the food your infant consumes.
Another issue is that exposure of infants to salt is generally harmful or may cause a long-lasting craving for salty foods (which could be harmful to health) or raise blood pressure in the short run.
Answers to this question can be definitely complicated. On other hand, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that tastes develop from the beginning of life. If you’re exposed to many salty foods at an early age, it’s possible this can lead to a craving for salt in later times. However, the connections between salt and health aren’t clear, and excessive salt consumption among adults is frequently linked to different dietary habits that can cause problems. In general, we aren’t very successful in understanding the advantages of certain food choices ( as I talked more in this article).
Additionally, Healthy adults can consume food that has salt. If the child you are raising develops a love of roasting their broccoli with salt and olive oil this isn’t necessarily negative.
The most interesting information is two small, randomized studies that examine the relationship between salt consumption in the early years of life as well as blood pressure. For one study, which was published in 1983 JAMA researchers randomized 245 infants to either normal or low sodium diets (practically that would mean low or normal sodium formula). When they reached the age of 6 months they noticed decreased blood pressure among the lower sodium group. Although the blood pressure was all in the normal range, they hypothesized this might suggest a broader salt-high-blood-pressure link.
Additional concerns were identified when 15 years after a subsequent study found that the normal sodium group was still having elevated blood pressures in one measure. This suggests a long-term connection between salt exposure at an early age and health, which could be a reason to be more concerned about the intake of salt by infants.
But, the follow-up study is a bit shaky and has minor issues. The initial study, as previously mentioned that it was conducted in a randomized manner. This means that it is possible to attribute any differences between groups as a causal result of the treatment since it is impossible to find a reason or reason why the groups differ. In theory, the randomization is valid 15 years further. However, the follow-up study was not able to cover all participants from the initial study — they comprised only 71 participants from the group with low sodium and 96 of the normal-sodium group. In addition, among those they did include there were some significant variations in their socioeconomic standing and their parents’ health.
This kind of issue -the one we refer to as “differential attrition” — can make it difficult to draw any long-term conclusion. In addition, it’s unclear what conclusions we can draw from this. The blood pressure differences are minor and not statistically significant. There aren’t any other significant differences between the groups with regard to weight or other measures. In the end, I agree with the authors who originally wrote that this supports the general connection with salt in relation to blood pressure however it does not directly suggest (say) that we shouldn’t add salt to our babies’ carrots.
What’s the Right Amount?
To summarize:
- Your baby does not require additional salt, as what they receive from formula or breast milk.
- It’s a very real issue however, it’s not likely to be caused by your child’s regular consumption of salty food.
- There are some concerns regarding elevated blood pressure in long run due to the higher intake of salt during the first year of treatment however the evidence on this isn’t particularly convincing and the variations are minor.
- Long-term preferences of salt, as well as other flavors, will likely to develop in the early years of the childhood years, but this doesn’t mean that they should not eat salty food.
It’s important to note that US guidelines recommend a specific amount of salt to be used for infants less than 1-year old that is less than 400 mg daily which includes any salt found in breastmilk or formula. If taken literally, this could mean that you may include a little salt in the food your baby eats however you should be cautious about the amount. However, this isn’t based on any particular thing; it’s just a theoretical idea at most.
The way we go about it with regards to decisions is slightly in the way you approach food choices for your infant. If you’re mostly using baby-specific food or purees during the first year of life there’s no reason for adding salt to the food items. This applies to making your own as well as the purchase of store-bought purees. Babies don’t have the same taste for salt like adults do, therefore there’s no need to include the salt in their diets.
However, when you’re trying to approach this with a form of weaning your baby by yourself, or any other method where your child is eating the same food that you do, it will become more complex. Do you really need to create two versions of each meal? My interpretation of the information is no except if you consume your food very, very salty. Moderation! Avoid serving baby olives, saltines, or very salty chips. However, the roast chicken you’re serving or the squash, the salad; it’s fine to serve them salt. Your baby is not going to require their own, unseasoned chicken.
