Baby food pouches, the convenient, less messy option for many parents, might be contributing to obesity and causing dental problems.
And a new study out of Otago University aims to find out.
Associate Professor Anne-Louise Heath Photo: supplied
Listen to the full interview
The squeezable pouches with plastic spouts are hugely popular with parents, but this research is going to look at whether babies are getting fed more than when they self-feed through them and if their teeth are being damaged.
Professor Anne-Louise Heath has been given a grant by the Health Research Council to look at the pouches which now dominate 70 percent of the baby food market.
Food pouches have exploded in popularity in the last few years, she told Jesse Mulligan.
“We did this audit of a major supermarket chain last year and 70 percent of the baby foods being offered, were now being offered in pouches instead of in jars and in cans.
"And in fact, when I did a quick look myself in my local supermarket yesterday, I reckon it's even higher than that now.”
So we know they are popular, and we now they are convenient, what we don’t know is if they are having any harmful impacts, she says.
Manufacturers are careful to say the pouches should be used to make spoon feeding easier.
"Officially the manufacturers are careful to recommend that what parents should do is they should take the pouch, take off the lid, squeeze the contents onto a spoon and then spoon feed baby, just as if they were using it from taking the food from a jar or can."
In real life, it doesn’t work that way, she says.
Photo: Pixabay
“Parents are really busy, and also creative, so many families are actually offering the baby the pouch, they’re soft, they’re squeezable, they've got this nice nozzle on the end so baby then squeezes the food themselves out of the pouch, and then can sit and suck the fruit puree, it’s usually a fruit puree out of the pouch, and consume it themselves.
“So less mess, less time from the parents point of view and anecdotally anyway, the babies seem to enjoy it.”
The research will be based on observations of 600 families.
“So how often are they using these instant food pouches? What kind of settings the parents find them useful to use? And we'll also look at whether they're using baby-led weaning.”
They’ll also take photographs of babies feeding in this way for dental research, she says.
“We've got colleagues here at the dental school who are going to look at, in terms of the dental health, those erupting teeth, the little baby teeth, that are coming out in infancy.
“And we're also going to measure breast milk, look at iron status, so it’s going to be a pretty thorough study.”
It’ll be two to three years before the research is complete, she says.
There are two main concerns, she says. The way the food is being delivered, and the potential impact on baby teeth.
“If we look at the size of the pouch they’re 120 grams, which is the equivalent of about 22 spoonfuls, so it's quite different to pass the pouch to baby and baby just squeezes and sucks the food out, to mum or dad having to sit there and spoon feed in 22 spoonfuls of food.”
She says it’s possible babies are being over-fed.
“We need to think about whether that has impact in terms of obesity.”
Dental health is also potentially compromised, she says.
“We know from sippy cups, when fruit juices are offered in those, anything that means that the fruit acids and fruit sugars are bathing the teeth over a prolonged period of time, may increase the risk of cavities and basically damage to that new enamel as the teeth come through.”
It’s possible the same is happening with these pouches, and the Ministry of Health, Plunkett, Māori health providers all want to know more, she says.