Have you been wondering how and when to introduce fish and shellfish to your baby?
In this video I’m going to talk about the safe ways to offer
these potentially allergenic foods, and the best age to introduce them.
If this is our first time meeting, I’m Dr. Belousov. I’m a board certified pediatrician
and I equip parents with knowledge, so they can care for their children with confidence.
Many parents worry about introducing the common allergenic foods to their baby,
because they fear an allergic reaction. But delaying the introduction of the allergenic foods
can increase the child’s risk of becoming allergic to these foods. So it’s to a baby’s benefit
to get exposed to them early on in the food introduction process. That’s why I put together
this video series to show you how simple it is to introduce these foods. This is the fifth video in
the series. If you’d like to check out the other videos, I have them linked at the end of this one.
First let’s talk about at what age you should introduce fish and shellfish products to your
baby. For many years parents were advised to avoid exposing their child to the common food
allergens in their first several years of life. However the Enquiring About Tolerance or EAT Study
showed that for babies who are at higher risk for developing food allergies, feeding them the common
allergy causing foods early and often, reduced their risk of developing allergies to these foods.
Most babies are developmentally ready to safely start taking solids around 6 months of age, and
when they’re showing all the signs of readiness to eat. First you can start off with introducing
several of the less allergenic foods. Then you can begin to introduce the common allergenic foods to
your baby one at a time, even in the first week of starting solids. There’s no reason to delay
exposing your baby to the common allergenic foods early on in the food introduction process. Seafood
will make a good addition to the baby's diet. It provides protein, omega-3 fatty acids that
help with brain development and a lot of other vitamins and minerals, without the high saturated
fat content found in many other animal foods. If you need some examples of a food introduction
approach that will allow you to more systematically expose your baby to a
variety of foods, including the common allergenic foods, then check out my video titled “Example of
Week 1 of Starting Baby On Solids” and my video titled “How To Create Balanced Meals & Expose
Baby To A Variety Of Foods.” They’re linked up here if you’d like to check them out.
So how can you safely introduce fish and shellfish to your baby?
Pick a good time in the morning or afternoon to introduce the new food. I don’t recommend
introducing the common allergenic foods close to bedtime so you give yourself several hours
of awake time to observe for a potential allergic reaction. Also avoid introducing
two new foods on the same day. In such a situation if your child has an allergic reaction,
it will be more challenging to know which one was the cause. When introducing a fish or shellfish
product for the first time, out of an abundance of caution it’s recommended to spend several days
giving the new allergenic food, and holding off on offering any other new foods. However
on those days it is fine to bring back foods that your baby had previously and did well with.
There are many different fish that are considered to be safe to give to a baby, as long as they’re
fully cooked. Salmon, trout, cod, tilapia, whitefish, catfish, perch, flounder, canned
light tuna and sardines are some of the fish that are considered to be low in mercury and safe to
offer. The great thing about fish is that it’s soft and easy for the baby to chew, even before
they have any teeth. Some ideas for offering fish include mashing it with a vegetable or fruit that
your baby has had previously. An example would be to mash cooked salmon with avocado. If you’re
doing baby-led weaning and offering finger foods, you can make homemade fish sticks with catfish,
pollock, tilapia or flounder. You can also offer canned sardines cut into strips about the
thickness of an adult pinky finger, or a little thicker. But be sure to look at the labels and
go with the lower salt options for canned fish. When offering shellfish, I find that it’s easiest
to cook shrimp or crab and puree it with a vegetable or fruit that the baby has had
previously. Or you can make homemade crab cakes or shrimp cakes, and cut them into strips for
the baby to self feed. If you’ll be offering shrimp, be sure to remove the shell and tail,
and after cooking it, slice the shrimp in half lengthwise to make it easier for the baby to chew.
Now let's talk about how much and how often you should offer fish and shellfish to your child.
When they’re just starting solids, babies will only take a few bites each meal. But even when
they really start taking to food, the recommended amount of seafood to offer is around 1 to 2 ounces
a week. At this time it’s still unknown the exact amounts of fish and shellfish that a baby
would need to eat to potentially decrease their risk for developing an allergy to these foods.
In the EAT study they asked parents to offer a total of 25 grams of whitefish divided into at
least two meals a week for a total of at least 5 weeks. This translates to being a little less
than half an ounce two times a week. If we follow this as a guide, then you can aim to offer up to
half an ounce of fish two times a week and half an ounce of a shellfish product two times a week.
Children who are at higher risk for developing food allergies are those who have eczema and/or
were diagnosed with an egg allergy, or have a family history of allergic conditions.
These babies especially were shown to benefit greatly from early and frequent
exposure to allergenic foods in their diet as a strategy to potentially prevent them
from developing food allergies. And even if your child doesn’t have any risk factors for food
allergies, delayed introduction can increase the risk of becoming allergic to these foods.
Therefore there’s no benefit to delaying the introduction of the allergenic foods to your baby.
Be sure to continue to expose your baby to the common allergenic foods on a weekly basis,
since regular exposure is key to allergy prevention. And even if you aren’t able
to give as much as I’m recommending, your child stands to benefit from the consistency of being
exposed to these allergenic foods in their diet. If you’d like to know how an allergic reaction
to a food would present itself, and what to do in the event that your baby has an allergic reaction,
I have a separate video that goes into detail on that. It’s linked up here,
if you’d like to check it out. I also have videos on how to introduce all the other common
allergenic foods linked up here. See you in the next video.