My daughter is 10 months old. When is it ok to feed her eggs?

Question

My daughter is 10 months old. When is it ok to feed her eggs?

Answer 1

She can have yolks anytime - hard boil some eggs, separate the cooked yolk and whites...you can start whites after about 1 yr old.

Answer 2

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9646449/page...

Food allergy fears get some of the blame for the bland approach. For decades doctors have said the best way to prevent allergies is to limit infants to bland foods, avoiding seasonings, citrus, nuts and certain seafood.

But Butte's review found no evidence that children without family histories of food allergies benefit from this. Others suspect avoiding certain foods or eating bland diets actually could make allergies more likely. Some exposure might be a good thing.

http://www.homemade-baby-food-recipes.co...

So when can I give my baby eggs?

Because of the fact that many children tend to be allergic to egg whites, doctors advise that you avoid egg whites altogether for the first year. If there is a family history of food allergy, then it might be worth excluding egg whites from your baby's diet for the first 2 years.

Well cooked egg yolk, however, can be given to your baby from 6 months of age - although you may want to wait on egg yolk, too, if there is a family history of allergy. The easiest way to separate the yolk from the white is to hard boil the egg, then simply remove the yolk. Alternatively, you can crack a raw egg into two, then tip the yolk back and forth between the shell halves, allowing the white to drain into a cup. However, some traces of egg white may remain and even tiny traces can lead to a severe reaction in an allergic baby.

http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nut...

The recent approval by the US Food & Drug Administration of baby foods enriched with docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) has led to a raft of such products being launched this year.

But new scientific research from Australia published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that there are other sources of iron and DHA which offer an alternative to enriched formulas - namely egg yolks.

The researchers, led by Maria Makrides from the Child Nutrition Research Centre at the Women's and Children's Hospital in North Adelaide, studied the nutritional value of including two different varieties of egg yolks as weaning foods for a group of breast-fed and formula-fed infants and found that egg yolks provided advantages to both groups, with no negative effects on cholesterol concentrations.

The 137 mother-infant pairs in the study were recruited through immunisation clinics in and around Adelaide, and the six-month-old infants were randomly assigned to receive either no dietary intervention (control), regular eggs, or eggs that had been enriched by feeding hens on diets rich in omega-3 fatty acids, such as DHA.

Makrides' team took blood samples at six months and 12 months of age in order to measure the levels of DHA in red blood cells, as well as the levels of iron and plasma cholesterol.

In both the breast-fed and formula-fed groups, infants who consumed omega-3 fatty acid-enriched egg yolks had 30 to 40 per cent greater red cell membrane DHA levels than those fed regular egg yolks. There was no effect of omega-3 fatty acid enriched egg yolks on plasma cholesterol, but plasma iron levels were increased, the study showed.

The researchers claimed that the advantages of egg yolks for weaning purposes included their practicality and palatability as a food for infants, a modest improvement in iron status, and - in the case of omega-3 enriched eggs - a means of increasing dietary DHA without negative effects on cholesterol levels.

The authors suggested that future research in the field be directed toward determining the physiological benefits of enhancing DHA in the latter part of infancy.  

Answer 3

You should not give your baby eggs until after the age of one. You do not want to run the risk of the baby developing an allergy.

Answer 4

I've read that babies can eat eggs (scrambled, hard boiled, etc.) as soon as they are able to eat table foods. Most places say egg whites only and others say the yolk is fine also. The most important thing is to observe your child closely for a couple of days after giving eggs just to make sure no allergic reaction takes place. Good luck!