Page 118 - April Issue

in focus: infant | food & diet

Feeding on
demand or
schedule?

For generations,Western
“baby experts” have

advised parents to feed
their babies at regularly-
spaced intervals of three
or four hours.Today, official
medical recommendations
have shifted in favour of
feeding on demand.That’s

probably a good thing,
because the timed-interval

infant feeding schedule is
not dictated by physiology

or what’s best for babies.

mother, baby & child April 2011 West advised parents to observe a strictly-
timed newborn feeding schedule. Even
In industrialised countries, the newborn though these recommendations have
feeding schedule appears to fall short changed, mothers living in Western
of the new medical recommendations. (and Westernised) societies may
For instance, a Japanese study persist in feeding babies the way their
reported that breastfeeding mothers mothers did (Manz et al 1999).
fed their infants an average of 7.4
times every 24 hours (Yamauchi and On the flip side, there’s a different
Yamauchi 1990). In a U.S. study, pattern in the less developed parts
mothers characterised as “feeding on of the world. A 2006 study reported
demand” breastfed their babies an that Nigerian mothers nursed
average of 6.5 times (range: 5.5-8.0 their newborns an average of 13.3
times) every 24 hours for the first 3 times within the first 24 hours of
days of life (Maisels et al 1994). In a life (Okechukwu and Okolo 2006).
large study of 12 different European Seven days later, these mothers
countries, 1-month old infants got were still following the same high-
an average of 7.1 breastfeeds per 24 frequency newborn feeding schedule.
hours (van’t Hof and Haschke 1997). In rural Guatemala, mothers nurse
These relatively infrequent feedings their 3-month old babies over 10
may reflect a kind of culture lag. For times a day (Delgado 1982). In rural
several generations, Western doctors Bangladesh, mothers nurse their

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