Nutritional Needs of Infants

In the first few years, your child has specific nutritional needs to ensure his/her growth.

Human milk and infant formula have all the nutrients your baby needs for the first 6 months - protein, fats, carbohydrate, vitamins and minerals. Human milk contains additional components (e.g. immune defense proteins) that are not present in infant formula.

Fats

The fats in human milk, infant formula and food provide your baby with energy and essential fats—linoleic and linolenic acids, fat soluble vitamins - A, D, E and K, as well as other fats that have many benefits.

Fats are high in energy which is especially important for infants.

A baby’s stomach is small and can only hold small amounts of food at a time. Their food therefore needs to be high in fat to give them the energy they need in a concentrated form and in quantities with which their stomachs can cope.

"Essential fats" means our bodies cannot produce them, and we need to get them from our diet. They play an important role in maintaining the proper functioning of cell membranes.

Fats help keep your baby healthy and are important in brain and eye development.

Protein

Protein forms part of all cells in the body and is needed to make new cells. Protein is important for your baby’s growth. The amount of protein in human milk is suited to the growth rate of human infants.

Human milk

Human milk alone is the best source of nutrients for infants and is the gold standard for good nutrition from birth up to 6 months.

Human milk provides nutrients in the quantities and proportions required to sustain an infant’s growth and development during the first months of life. It also strengthens the immune system of your baby, helps keep your baby healthy and improves development. What’s more, human milk can provide the basis of healthy nutrition until the infant is one year old or more, right until weaning is complete.

Human milk is therefore the ideal food for a normal, healthy infant. It provides adequate quantities of nutrients, in correctly balanced proportions.

The infant’s nutritional needs

All babies are different and so are their needs. This means that babies can regulate the amount of nutrition they need by taking more or less milk, both human milk and infant formula. That is how they make sure they get the right amount of energy, proteins, fats, minerals and vitamins.