If you breastfeed your baby, you can start giving porridge from four months. However, making porridge from breast milk is not always easy, because the enzymes from breast milk can cause the porridge to become thin again. However, there is an easy way to prevent the porridge from becoming thin.
When to start with porridge
It is best to feed a newly born baby with breast milk, or breastfeeding. If you do not want or are unable to do this, it is also possible to give your baby special infant formula, also called formula, that is suitable for his or her age. After four months you can slowly increase your baby’s diet. The intestines are now developed enough to start with easily digestible snacks. You can start from the moment your baby indicates this. Your baby can indicate this in the following ways:
- Your baby wants more breast or bottle feeding
- Your baby sucks on his hands
- Your baby puts things in his mouth
- Your baby makes smacking sounds or bite movements
- Your baby pays a lot of attention to your food
- Your baby wakes up again during the night even though he was already sleeping through the night
When your baby is four months old and is ready for a different diet, you can start with vegetable and fruit snacks and porridge based on rice flour and milk. Do not use cow’s milk for this, as it does not yet meet your baby’s needs because it contains too little iron. So always make the porridge from breast milk or formula. However, feeding porridge is not necessary. It is also possible to give only fruit and vegetable snacks in addition to breastfeeding in the period between four and six months, but it is also possible not to give any additional food. Breastfeeding or formula still contains enough nutrients for your baby during this period. Only from six months onwards is it necessary for your baby’s development to start supplementary feeding in addition to breastfeeding. After six months you can also opt for porridge made from grains instead of rice flour.
Enzymes in breast milk
Unlike formula, breast milk contains enzymes. Babies need enzymes to digest food. Breast milk contains the enzymes anti-protease, alpha-amylase, lipase, oxidase, lysozyme and peroxidase. Alpha-amylase, previously also called diastase, plays an important role in thinning the porridge made from breast milk. Alpha-amylase splits the α(1-4)-glycosidic bonds of starch, creating sugars. In a four-month-old baby, alpha-amylase is also present in the saliva and is produced in the pancreas. This allows the baby to digest the starch from the porridge.
Operation of enzymes
In general, enzymes will work faster at a higher temperature, but because enzymes consist of proteins, they will solidify, or denature, at too high a temperature. The same happens, for example, when boiling an egg. Most enzymes are denatured at a temperature of 80 degrees and therefore become inactive. In addition, proteins are sensitive to acid. Just think of lumps that you sometimes encounter in sour milk. Enzymes will therefore denature if the pH is too low. Most enzymes work optimally between a pH of four to six. Finally, enzymes can be made inactive by certain substances that attach to the enzyme, such as carbon monoxide or certain metals. The optimal pH for alpha amylase is between 5.6 and 5.8 and the optimal temperature is between 72 degrees and 75 degrees. Above 80 degrees, alpha amylase is quickly inactivated.
Porridge from breast milk
If the porridge is made from breast milk, the porridge will in fact be ‘digested’ before it is eaten, because the alpha-amylase from the breast milk cuts the starch into smaller pieces. This converts the starch into sugar and makes the porridge thin. This process will go faster when the porridge is warm, as the enzymes work faster at higher temperatures. However, if breast milk has become too warm, alpha amylase will be denatured, making it inactive. Making porridge from breast milk will therefore be better if the breast milk is heated to at least 80 degrees. The disadvantage, however, is that at this temperature a lot of valuable substances from breast milk are lost. Immune substances and cells are lost and the amount of vitamin C decreases. However, heated breast milk always remains better and healthier than formula based on cow’s milk, which means that porridge from heated breast milk will be better than porridge from formula.
