Strawberry for children, pregnant, lactating. When and how much can you?

Contents

Pros and cons of strawberries for toddler
When can I give strawberries?
How to correctly introduce strawberries into a children's diet?
How to choose a strawberry for a child?
Strawberry for pregnant and lactating women

Strawberry is a juicy, sweet, inviting berry! Her love children and adults. Many do not know from what age a child can be given strawberries. How to do the right thing to make the baby happy, and do not harm his health? Any young mother is very worried about these questions. Of course, the answers do not lie on the surface, because the body of each crumbs is unique. However, there are general rules that everyone should adhere to.

Pros and cons of strawberries for baby

Of course, strawberries are a very useful berry, it contains a lot of minerals and vitamins that our body needs. However for the child this product has both pluses and minuses. First let's get acquainted with the positive aspects:

The strawberry contains a whole bunch of vitamins and minerals necessary for the child. Leaders among them are vitamins A and C, as well as iron, calcium and folic acid.
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This berry is very juicy, so on a hot day it can perfectly quench your thirst.
Sugar from such a berry is perfectly absorbed by the child's organism and is an excellent source of energy for it.
Thanks to its antimicrobial properties, strawberry fights well against a cold child.
Strawberry can strengthen the walls of blood vessels, increase immunity and even improve blood composition.
In addition, this berry digests digestion and improves appetite, which is especially important for children who eat very little.

As for the minuses of strawberries, they, alas, are not so little:

There is a lot of natural histamine in it. This makes it a strong food allergen. In many children prone to allergic reactions, this berry causes a strong rash, itching and other unpleasant allergy symptoms.
If the berries were not well washed, they can enter the intestinal infection in the children's body.
Sometimes the use of delicious strawberries causes babies to swell up their tummy, gases, fermenting processes in the body. However, this happens only if you eat too many berries at a time.

When can I give strawberries?

Most pediatricians agree that there is no point in hurrying with strawberries in the children's diet. Strawberry for children up to a year is extremely undesirable. Accordingly, it should not be given at 6 or even 8 months.

If you hurry too much, your baby may experience a severe allergy, which is expressed by a strong itchy rash all over the calf's body. In addition, this berry at an early age can provoke diarrhea in the baby.

If you are still confident in the strong health of your child, you can very carefully start to introduce into his diet a strawberry. However, you still need to do this before the eighth month of life and only if the child is already used to other kinds of complementary foods. If the baby had eaten only breast milk before that, his reaction to red berries would definitely be negative. There are so many useful fresh vegetables and fruits that you can feed a small child, so give preference to them.

Do not rush the introduction of strawberries into the baby's diet.

By the way, even large children( from one year to seven years) should be given strawberries in limited quantities. At this age, kids should not eat more than 100 grams of berries a day.

How to correctly introduce strawberries into a children's diet?

So, the day has come when you still decided to introduce a juicy and aromatic strawberry into the ration of your crumbs. You need to do this carefully and by all means to avoid unpleasant consequences. There are two ways to introduce strawberries into the baby's diet.

Method number 1.

Suggest the baby a half or a quarter( depending on the size) of one ripe berry. Next, during the day, carefully monitor the condition and behavior of the child. His chair should remain unchanged, and on the skin there should be no rashes.

If all is well, then the next day you can already treat the crumb with a whole berry and again observe its reaction. The number of berries should be increased gradually and you can bring a maximum of 7-8 pieces per day. The easiest way to find out the optimal portion of strawberries for a child is to lay berries in his hand. A kid can eat just as many berries as fit in his little handle.

Method number 2.

It involves the preparation of strawberry water for a child. A few berries should be poured with steep boiling water and leave them for a couple of hours. After that, the drink must be filtered through a sieve and offered a little baby. If the child's reaction is positive( normal stool, no rash), then the next day in the drink you can leave one berry, crushing it thoroughly.

When the child is already sure there is a strawberry, you can indulge him with all sorts of delicacies based on this berry, for example, to prepare smoothies, salads, jellies and compotes from her. The perfect solution is to add strawberries to dairy products.

How to choose strawberries for a child?

It is very important to give children only a good, properly selected strawberry. You can not buy it until the middle of June. Undoubtedly, there is a great temptation to acquire this inviting sweetness in early summer or even in May, but at that time strawberries are usually either grown artificially or brought from abroad. Both of these options are unacceptable for the child's body.

Before buying, carefully inspect the berries. They should be dry, without dents and damage, bright red. Be extremely vigilant, sometimes unscrupulous sellers tint unripened strawberries, which is very harmful for children.
To determine the quality of berries for sure, smell them. Ripe strawberries have a strong, characteristic and very pleasant aroma, which you can not confuse with anything.
The tail is another measure of freshness. If the tails on the berries are wilted, then the berries themselves are already stale, they do not need to be taken.

Eat berries immediately after purchase. Strawberries are not a product that will last a long time in the refrigerator. Children are generally not recommended to give strawberries, which was stored for more than two days.

Strawberry for pregnant and breastfeeding women

Now you know whether it is possible to give the children strawberries. However, one more question remains unsolved. Is it possible to eat this berry for pregnant women, as well as for those who are breastfeeding?

With a waiting baby everything is simple enough. If there was no allergy to strawberries before pregnancy, then you can safely use these berries and during their interesting situation. Of course, it is better to give preference to berries grown in their own garden( to be sure of their naturalness) and not to abuse them. A healthy pregnant woman who consumes strawberries in moderate amounts will benefit only, because folic acid( which is very much in berries) is so necessary during this period of life.

But with breastfeeding women it's all a little more complicated. Even if you do not have allergies to strawberries, this does not guarantee that such an allergy is not present in your child. Try to eat very few berries and observe the reaction of the baby. If everything is in order, you can eat this little berry a little. However, in any case, it is not necessary to abuse. A breastfeeding woman should not eat more than 2-3 berries a day.