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Drinking Water For Your Baby’s Health

Baby Health

Baby’s health should be number one priority of every mother. Your little one is crying, pulling his knees toward his little stomach in pain. When you pick him up, he continues crying. He can’t possibly be hungry. You just nursed him 10 minutes ago.

“He has the colic,” your mother-in-law says. “Give him a little warm water with sugar in it.”

Your own mother disagrees. “He wants a drink of cool water,” she says. “He’s hot, that’s all.”

When You Should NOT Give Baby Drinking Water

Researchers at The Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta believe you should not give baby drinking water during the first months. They thought it was a significant problem when a study revealed that 25 percent of new mothers gave baby drinking water at least three times per week during the first month of life. They believed baby drinking water could have undesirable side effects.

  • Too much water can be dangerous. In rare cases, giving baby drinking water resulted in water intoxication. In other cases, young babies developed seizures or hypothermia.
  • An Australian study found that giving baby drinking water with sugar after each breastfeeding increased initial weight loss.
  • Giving a newborn baby drinking water can interfere with breastfeeding. The baby drinks less milk because his tummy is full of water. In response, his mother’s breasts decrease milk production, and baby gets less health-providing milk.
  • Giving a bottle-fed baby drinking water is also detrimental since it reduces the baby’s desire for formula.
  • A newborn’s immature kidneys work hard to concentrate urine. If you give a baby drinking water, the kidneys may have trouble excreting it, leading to dangerous changes in the bloodstream’s sodium and potassium levels.
  • Until babies are able to eat a variety of food, they get all the water they need from breastfeeding or formula.
  • If you give a jaundiced, newborn baby drinking water in the first days after birth, it can increase the severity of jaundice. Breastfeeding newborns don’t have much problem with jaundice, but if you give that baby drinking water as well as mother’s milk, he will become more jaundiced, sleepy, and lethargic.
  • When you give baby drinking water in a bottle, you may confuse her sucking technique, making it more difficult for her to nurse.

For these reasons, newborn infants should not be given extra fluids unless your pediatrician recommends it.

“But the baby may be too hot,” argues your mother. “He may become dehydrated.”

Breastfeeding mothers naturally adjust for heat. In hot weather, breast milk becomes slightly more watery. In cold weather, it becomes creamier.

When You Should Give Baby Drinking Water

There is a time when you should give baby drinking water. When she reaches an age of 6-7 months and is able to sit up during meals, you can begin to give baby drinking water in a cup. She will be eating some solid foods by then and can take a little water with them. A cup is better than a bottle since they will not drink too much water.

Your baby’s pediatrician knows what is best for your baby. Before giving your baby drinking water – even purified “baby drinking water”, ask your pediatrician for advice.

Final Advise For Your Baby’s Health

You know the children are entitled to soft and delicate health. Drinking pure water for them is very important. And Purified water is pretty much water that is completely radiation, chemical and mineral free. There are many applications for this kind of water, but using purified water for drinking is NOT one of them. This type of water is essentially mineral-free and because of this, it tends to dissolve any substance which comes into contact with it including carbon dioxide from the air.

This can often be enough to make the water very acidic and unsafe for drinking. Keep in mind that this also pertains to all other types of water which have had chemicals removed through various processes. Some of these processes may be simple and others a lot more complicated.

And you knew that Public water supplies have been contaminated and most of them contain impurities which cause health issues. This is why most people choose to seek other alternatives rather than using tap waters to quench their thirst, assist in cooking, brush their teeth etc.

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