An infant’s health is seriously put at risk if it is allowed to ingest more than 1 gram of salt daily, so it’s important to monitor a baby’s salt and sodium consumption, especially during their first year.
The early months are crucial to a baby’s health for life. After the first sixth months, a baby’s salt intake should not exceed 1 gram until the end of the first year. From ages one to three, only a little more than 2 grams are adequate for good health. Babies are unable to taste anything initially, and sodium may damage the kidneys. Babies receive all the salt they need from formula or breast milk. To prevent damage to the baby’s organs, foods that should be limited include ready-made meals, gravies, soups, crackers, biscuits, sauces, pizza, tinned vegetables, bacon, cheese, pies, etc. The baby’s taste has no frame of reference for spiciness until around the eighth month. An infant would not be able to tell whether any particular food is sweet, sour, bitter, salty, much less whether it would taste better one way or the other. Adding salt to a baby’s food is not necessary.
To begin to control the babies’ salt intake, parents should check the nutritional values that are printed on the back or underside of the food packaging. Salt is typically labeled sodium and 1 gram of sodium is equal to 2.55 grams of salt, so it’s important to choose foods with sodium content less then .01 gram of sodium per 100 grams. Typically baby food sold as baby food is low in salt, but even with organic baby food you should check the labels to see how much salt is in the food.
When a baby ingests too much salt, the salt builds up in the body and the body is unable to filtrate correctly. The kidneys filter out various chemicals such as phosphorus, potassium, sodium, and other consumed chemicals, and then rereleases them back into the blood to return the body to a homeostatic condition. It can also cause high blood pressure if there is too much. Knowing that waste matter builds up in the blood and damages a body often convinces parents to make their own baby food. It doesn’t matter whether vegetables or fruits are fresh, tinned, or frozen as long as salt is not added. Typically, tinned vegetables have added salt, so beware. Be in the habit of reading food labels so you can protect your child against too much additional salt.
In addition to high blood pressure and kidney failure, a baby may suffer fatal brain damage from consuming too much salt. This is part of the reason it’s cautioned to parents not to feed their children adult food.
Although you find that salt enhances the flavor of foods for yourself, babies cannot taste the difference. It’s unwise to assume that the taste of salt makes a difference to a newborn, and it’s dangerous to impose adult preferences on them. If a child younger than 6 months ingests more than 1 gram of salt, kidney failure, heart problems, and/or brain damage could result. Little ones will not miss what they have yet to experience. They won’t know what they’re missing! Just be careful and check all food labels for sodium content and you will have one less thing to worry about.