PEDIATRICS Vol. 75 No. 1 January 1985, pp. 214-215
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow P3Rs: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when P3Rs are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow E-mail this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My File Cabinet
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Finberg, L.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Finberg, L.

Summary-The Weaning Process

Laurence Finberg MD1

1 From the Department of Pediatrics, Downstate Medical Center, State University of New York, Brooklyn

Early in this symposium, Räihä (p 136) called attention to the biologic truism that breast-feeding evolved so that the composition of human milk would be optimal for the survival of the species, which must include the mother's survival as well as the infant's. However, optimal for survival in infancy may not be the same as optimal for life in the fifth, sixth, and subsequent decades of modern life. Therefore, as we consider approaches to infant feeding, these considerations, unanswerable at present, should be continuously in our thinking, at no time more than when we consider the weaning period, which, though variously defined, presents the most important nutritional challenge of modern times.

Whitehead has provided us with the news that our understanding of energy requirements for infants is surprisingly imperfect. His data suggest that sole breast-feeding by well-nourished mothers has sufficient calories for optimal growth on the average for 3 months. After this point, the average infant requires another source of calories. This conclusion comes from calculations derived from the National Center for Health Statistics growth curves on the one hand and actual milk production on the other. Although there is room for improvement of the data base, there is certainly a suggestion that weaning should begin at about 3 months of age in the breast-fed infant.

This point is underscored by Underwood, who views weaning as a long-term process in which calories from other foods complement human milk until the infant moves to the family diet. In some societies, such a process may extend over several years, and the presence in human milk of the digestive enzymes amylase and lipase adds an aura of naturalness to such a process.