When you could have an allergic child, the introduction of solids is an activity fraught with worry.

At issue is the fact that allergic families often produce allergic children. There is a clear genetic component. So, if you or your spouse have allergies - or you already have one child with allergies - your chances of an allergic infant are higher.

While there is no single right time to introduce your infant to food - and the medical community has varied the recommended age many times in the last 50 years - there are some common guidelines that all parents should consider for the health of their child.

The first one is to breastfeed exclusively until at 6 months of age. All the research on breastfeeding and allergies show that breastmilk is the best nutrition for baby - and may help you to ensure good health for your child for the longer term. In fact, recent research showed that breastfeeding as little as 3 months provided protective benefits against asthma until 8 years of age - as long as fast food was not a dietary staple.

Extended breastfeeding may also provide protection against developing allergies as the baby grows. It certainly promotes health! The World Health Organization is now recommending exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months and ongoing nursing until 2 years and beyond.

The second guideline goes hand in hand with the first - avoid introducing solid early. While it was common to start babies on cereals as young as a few weeks old over the past century, putting solids in an under-developed gut may actually contribute to the development of allergies later, although research to demonstrate this point is sketchy at best. There is no easy way to study the question: for obvious reasons, you cannot randomly assign babies to groups to force early introduction of solids.

Because the baby’s gut is not mature before 6 months (and even longer for some infants), it is possible that babies fed solids early will also suffer from various health problems. In time periods where early introduction of food was extremely common, vitamin and mineral deficiencies were also rampant.

In the end, it is the parent’s decision - but check for your baby’s readiness! Your baby will show you that they want solid food by expressing interest. They will grab at your spoon while you eat, or try to take pieces of food from you. If they don’t exhibit these behaviours, you can try offering them food, but never fear. You can also wait to feed solids, without any damage to your child.

After all - every child will start to eat at some point!

Check out tomorrow’s blog posting for more on which foods to introduce and in what order.