Flavors in breast milk: Can babies taste what you ate for lunch?
© 2022 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved
Flavors in breast milk? From the food that mothers ingest? Yes, it really happens, and babies can gustation the divergence. It might even affect their food preferences subsequently in life.
A female parent eats a spicy meal, then nurses her baby an 60 minutes later. Will the flavors make their way into the chest milk? Will her babe observe undercurrents of garlic? Elevation notes of ginger and coconut?
The babe probably isn't mulling it over with the vocabulary of a foodie. Just the bones notion isn't far-fetched. A mother's diet actually can impact the taste of her milk, and babies don't merely notice these flavors. They likewise reply to them. Here's how nosotros know.
More garlic-flavored breast milk, please.
What happens if yous ask a bunch of breastfeeding mothers to eat some garlic pills?
Researchers tried it, and confirmed through lab analyses that the garlic made its mode into the women's milk. The flavour peaked between 1.v to iii hours after ingestion, at which point the women were asked to feed their three-calendar month-one-time babies.
And then?
Compared with babies whose mothers had swallowed placebo pills, the "garlic babies" spent more time feeding. They evidently liked the garlic (Mennella and Beauchamp 1991).
A like experiment suggests that babies enjoy vanilla, too (Mennella and Beauchamp 1996). And when researchers asked lactating women to ingest flavor capsules, they constitute that all four flavors — assistant, caraway, anise, and menthol — could exist detected in breast milk later on on. Banana peaked afterwards just one hour, but the others lasted longer (Hausner et al 2008).
So it seems probable that many food flavors make their fashion into breast milk. Does this have any lasting effects?
Do babies remember flavors in chest milk, and recognize these flavors when they start eating solid foods?
Julie Mennella and colleagues wanted to find out, so they recruited a grouping breastfeeding women, then randomly assigned some of the mothers to drink carrot juice each solar day for the beginning 2 months postpartum.
Months later, when the babies were v-6 months erstwhile, the researchers brought the babies into the lab for a sense of taste exam. On unlike days, the babies were offered plain cereal and carrot-flavored cereal. What happened side by side?
All the babies made screwy, disapproving faces when they encountered the carrot-flavored cereal. But compared with babies in a control group, the babies who had been exposed to "carroty" chest milk reacted less negatively (Mennella et al 2001). They seemed to recognize the taste of carrots — more three months later their mothers had stopped drinking carrot juice.
Does it brand any difference when babies commencement encounter new foods in their milk? Do flavors in breast milk accept more impact depending on the timing of exposure?
Menella and her colleagues pursued this question in a 2nd experiment. One time over again, researchers randomly assigned lactating volunteers to drink juice each 24-hour interval — this time, expanding the regimen to include four different juices (vegetable, beet, celery, and carrot).
But the researchers as well tested infants of unlike ages. Some mothers were instructed to begin drinking the veggie-flavored juices when their babies were merely ii weeks old. Other mothers were told to start at vi weeks, and yet others waited until 12 weeks.
When the babies were viii months old, they took the taste exam. What now?
All babies exposed to carrot flavors in breast milk were more accepting of the carrot-flavored cereal, and ate more than of it. Just the consequence was strongest among the infants who had started at two weeks (Menella et al 2017).
And interestingly, these babies had been exposed for only 4 weeks. And so their enhanced liking for carrot juice was linked with experiences they'd had as newborns approximately 7 months earlier — a calendar month-long stage when their mothers had drunkard several dissimilar veggie drinks, just ane of which which was carrot juice (Menella et al 2017).
Does this hateful that any amount of exposure to flavors in breast milk will make babies like a given nutrient?
No. In fact, in the get-go study, the carrot-exposed babies didn't eat more than carrot-flavored cereal. They just showed fewer negative reactions to the taste.
Moreover, when a team from the Academy of Coperhagen tested the effects of caraway exposure on 5-viii month former breastfeeding babies, they plant that 10 days of exposure to carroway flavors in breast milk had no impact on the babies' acceptance of a carroway-flavored purée (Hausner et al 2010).
And so the enquiry doesn't tell us that exposure to flavors in breast milk will make babies similar a food. But information technology does support a more fundamental idea — that babies begin learning nigh food flavors long earlier they start eating solid foods.
That shouldn't surprise u.s.a., not if we consider the bear witness for prenatal learning about food. Babies develop the power to taste and smell before they are built-in, and food flavors tin can laissez passer through the placenta and into the amniotic fluid. Studies signal that newborns are more accepting of flavors they have encountered during gestation. Read more nearly the fascinating inquiry in my article, opens in a new window"Prenatal learning: Do "pregnancy foods" affect babies' eating habits?"
Does breastfeeding assist shape childhood eating habits?
The caraway study didn't support a brusk-term exposure issue, simply it did underscore a difference between breastfed and formula-fed babies: Regardless of whether or not their mothers had consumed carroway, breastfed babies showed a higher initial credence of the carroway purée than formula-fed infants did (Hausner et al 2010).
That's consistent with other research showing that breastfed infants are more probable to accept new foods, and more likely to have varied diets as they get older. For instance, research suggests that infants are less likely to become picky eaters later in life (Forestell 2017). And the longer babies breastfeed, the more likely they are to consume vegetables during early childhood (de Wild et al 2018).
Could this be considering the experience of tasting many different foods — experiencing many different flavors in chest milk — prepares babies to sample a diversity of solid foods? If so, this could be an important benefit of breastfeeding.
What about babies on formula? Practise they take any interesting season experiences?
Formula might never gustatory modality like garlic or carrots, just dissimilar formulas accept somewhat different flavors, and these, too, may influence the development of nutrient preferences.
In an experiment on preschoolers, Djin Gie Liem and Julie Mennella asked kids to taste a variety of juices, each characterized by unlike levels of sweetness and sourness.
The researchers institute that kids who'd consumed sour-tasting, protein hydrolysate formulas as babies preferred higher concentrations of citric acid in their juice (Liem and Mennella 2002). Kids who'd used a unlike formula were less likely to enjoy sour juice.
A like study constitute that kids who had consumed soy-based formulas were more likely to enjoy a bitter-tasting juice (Mennella and Beauchamp 2002).
And other experiments propose that babies fed hydrolysate formulas are less likely than babies on milk-based formulas to consume pureed broccoli or cauliflower (Mennella et al 2006)
So information technology appears that a child'due south nutrient preferences aren't purely idiosyncratic or arbitrary. They aren't just a reflection of individual genetics, or media hype, or even childhood experiences. They are influenced past prenatal events and encounters during infancy — exposure to flavors in breast milk and formula (Forestell 2017).
More than information
What else is in breast milk? Read about the nutrients in breast milk opens in a new windowhere.
References: Flavors in breast milk and formula
Cooke LJ, Wardle J, Gibson EL, Sapochnik One thousand, Sheiham A, and Lawson M. 2004. Demographic, familial and trait predictors of fruit and vegetable consumption by pre-schoolhouse children. Public Health Nutr. seven(2):295-302.
Forestell CA. 2017.Flavor Perception and Preference Development in Homo Infants. Ann Nutr Metab. 70 Suppl 3:17-25.
Forestell CA and Mennella JA. 2007. Early determinants of fruit and vegetable credence. Pediatrics 120:1247-1254.
Hausner H, Bredie WLP, Mølgaard C, Petersen MA and Moller P. 2008. opens in a new windowDifferential transfer of dietary flavor compounds into man breast milk. Physiology and Behavior 95(ane-2): 118–124
Hausner H, Nicklaus S, Issanchou Southward, Mølgaard C, Møller P. 2010. Breastfeeding facilitates acceptance of a novel dietary flavour chemical compound. Clin Nutr. 29(1):141-8.
Lakkakula AP, Zanovec M, Silverman L, Spud E, and Tuuri G. 2008. Black children with loftier preferences for fruits and vegetables are at less take chances of existence at take chances of overweight or overweight. J Am Diet Assoc. 108(11):1912-5.
Liem DG and Mennella JA.2002. Sweet and sour preferences during childhood: role of early experiences. Dev Psychobiol. 41(four):388-95.
Maier AS, Chabanet C, Schaal B, Leathwood PD, Issanchou SN. 2008. Breastfeeding and experience with diversity early in weaning increment infants' acceptance of new foods for upwardly to two months. Clin Nutr. 27(half dozen):849-57.
Mennella JA, Daniels LM, Reiter AR. 2017. Learning to like vegetables during breastfeeding: a randomized clinical trial of lactating mothers and infants. Am J Clin Nutr. 106(i):67-76.
Mennella JA, Kennedy JM and Beauchamp GK. 2006. Vegetable acceptance by infants: effects of formula flavors. Early on Hum Dev. 82(7):463-viii.
Mennella JA and Beauchamp GK. 2002. Flavor experiences during formula feeding are related to preferences during babyhood. Early Hum Dev. 2002 Jul;68(2):71-82.
Mennella JA, Jagnow CP, and Beauchamp GK. 2001. Prenatal and Postnatal Flavour Learning by Human Infants. Pediatrics. 107(half dozen):E88.
Mennella JA, Beauchamp GK. 1996. The human being infants' responses to vanilla flavors in human milk and formula. Infant Behav Dev. 19:thirteen–19.
Mennella JA and Beauchamp GK. 1991. Maternal diet alters the sensory qualities of human milk and the nursling's behavior.
Sullivan SA and Birch LL. 1994. Infant Dietary Feel and Credence of Solid Foods Pediatrics 93 (two): 271-277.
Content of "Flavors in breast milk" terminal modified 2018
image credits for "Flavors in breast milk":
image of Thai repast by opens in a new windowVera & Jean-Christophe / flickr
image of baby nursing by opens in a new windowJessica Merz / flickr
image of toddler grabbing lemon piece from salad plate by opens in a new windowQuinn Dombrowski / flickr
Small portions of this article appeared in a previous, older article virtually flavors in breast milk.
Source: https://parentingscience.com/flavors-in-breast-milk/
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