What Juice To A Newborn Baby Can Do To Their Health And Wellbeing

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Mom’s Question:
My newborn baby is always hungry, can I give her some juice? She’s only 6 weeks old, not on breast milk, we have her on Good Start (soy).

Baby Helpline:

Giving Juice To a Newborn Baby – Yes Or No?

Congratulations on your adorable little girl!

I would not give juice to such a young little lady for several reasons:

Her stomach is meant to digest breast milk or formula and her body needs all the nutrition available in breast milk or formula. Juice can be filled with some vitamins, often vitamin C, but more than that, there really isn’t much in there for the baby to thrive upon. Since babies’ tummies are very small, it is essential that everything they eat is very nutritious. Giving juice to a newborn baby may lead to malnutrition or anemia.
Some research indicates that too much juice early in life has been associated with children becoming short and obese later on in childhood.
Some fruit juices contain high levels of fructose, which can cause gas and stomach distress in young babies.
Unpasteurized juice may contain harmful bacteria, such as E-coli and Salmonella.
Juice is filled with acid and can cause tummy pain and diarrhea.

The only reason I can think of to give her a little bit of (prune or pear) juice would be constipation, but there are other remedies for constipation in babies to consider too.

I know very well how exhausting it can be with a little baby who wants to eat all the time. But the behavior is completely normal and it passes. Six weeks is a growth spurt, so she will need more food now than even just a week ago. Increase the amount of formula you give her instead of adding juice. She needs it to continue her very rapid growth.

The growth rate slows down at around 3 months old, so by then, she might want to eat less often.

Even if it is exhausting, it is also (looking back) a very short period of time. Even within just a month, your little girl isn’t that newborn anymore, but instead likely to be a chubby little giggling baby… Hang in there!

Paula

Comments

Dec 19, 2018

Corn Syrup

by: Anonymous

Wouldn’t juice be on the list of things you don’t really want to introduce to your baby at that young of an age? Especially with all of the high fructose corn syrup. I also heard that people get most of their calories from too much juice drinking and that it can lead to an obese child if you let them have too much juice.

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Paula Dennholt

Paula Dennholt founded Easy Baby Life in 2006 and has been a passionate parenting and pregnancy writer since then. Her parenting approach and writing are based on studies in cognitive-behavioral models and therapy for children and her experience as a mother and stepmother. Life as a parent has convinced her of how crucial it is to put relationships before rules. She strongly believes in positive parenting and a science-based approach.

Paula cooperates with a team of pediatricians who assist in reviewing and writing articles.