Mom’s Perspective: A Gluten-Free Diet In Baby’s First Year To Reduce Risk Of Type 1 Diabetes
(Alternate tittle: “Bring out yer bread!”)
Now that the little bird is the big O-N-E, we have completed one year as parents. And one year doing the gluten-free diet with our baby. This was important to me because I felt strongly about the ties between the early introduction of gluten and type 1 diabetes diagnoses. And after doing some research and discussing this as a family, Chris and I decided to keep our BSparl gluten-free for her first year.
It was pretty easy, to be honest, keeping a little baby off gluten. (Especially since she doesn’t have celiac, so our decision was elective instead of required.) The ease came mostly from the fact that BSparl breastfed for almost six months, and didn’t start on solid foods until just after she turned six months old. All breastmilk and/or formula made for a pretty streamlined food schedule for that first half year. When we introduced solid foods into her diet, we went with organic rice cereal and formula first, then mushed up fruits and assorted other mushed up items (like avocado and shredded chicken breast) mixed with food pouches like these from Ella’s Kitchen. Her diet was pretty mushy for a good long time, since it took about 8 months for her first tooth to bust through. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Six Until Me.*