We're suffering from a bit of trauma in our household this evening, as something I read struck fear into our hearts for our little one. I was reading about starting baby on solid foods (like dry cereals and the like, which apparently Aiden is just about ready for) and one of the things that came up mentioned never give a baby under one year old Honey.
Well this was a little odd, since we have been mixing honey into the oatmeal cereal we have been giving Aiden since Thanksgiving. He has probably eaten honey 6-7 times in the course of the last two months, including this evening. Very bad idea.
Although rare, Honey has been known to carry the bacteria that causes Botulism. Well okay... I wasn't all that concerned at first, what is Botulism?
Looking up Botulism is when it gets REALLY scary. Botulism attacks the nervous system, and if not caught in time causes paralysis and can even be fatal. Some sights even say the symptoms might not show up for up to 30 days after ingestion. Fortunately, most sites seem to agree that in most instances the symptoms show up within 18-36 hours with the outside window being about 10 days. So we only have to be on edge for the next ten days... well that's still pretty scary.
Symptoms include : Constipation followed by lethargy, "floppy" limbs, an inability to keep the head upright, and trouble breathing.
We will be calling out doctor in the morning to let them know that we have been giving Aiden Honey and find out what, if anything we need to do about it. The good news (I HOPE) is that the honey he has ingested has come from the same bottle from the first time we fed it to him to the last. So logic seems to say that if the bottle has botulism in it we would have seen something before now.
In reality, there are only about 70-90 cases of Botulism diagnosed in infants each year in the United States and not all of those are tied to Honey, and I am sure a lot more than 90 parents are accidently and unknowingly feeding their infants honey every day. Chances are pretty good Aiden will be just fine.
It just seems like somewhere along the line someone would have mentioned "Hey honey is bad".... So for all of the parents out there who didn't already know.... Honey is potentially very harmful for your child! Please make yourself aware!
Hopefully this scare will pass with nothing more that a learning experience for us. But until we have cleared the window of time symptoms should appear, we are going to be a little on edge and watching Aiden's every move just in case.
Baby Growth Tracking
Monday, February 4, 2008
Something Every New Parent Should Know (But probably doesn't!)
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Fortunately this was one of the things that was mentioned in the expecting parent class we took. Totally worth it - although some of the material was common sense, things like this we would not have known otherwise.
On a side note: EGGS - I thought I found some conflicting information regarding eggs. One instructor told us that because of the high protein content and easy digestibility, eggs were a good early food. Then I read that they are a common allergen and should therefore be avoided. Turns out the allergy is to the egg whites, so hard boiling an egg and using the yellow part (mushed up and thinned some with formula) should be perfectly safe.
And then there are those kids that eat bologna sandwiches at 6 months and suck on toys with lead paint and grow up just fine. Amazing but true. So we do our best with what we know now and learn along the way and hope that it's enough. Perhaps the guardian angels take up the slack. :-)
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