ArticleMaternal & child nutrition2011
Is baby-led weaning feasible? When do babies first reach out for and eat finger foods?
Article in Maternal & child nutrition, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 87 citations in OpenAlex.
- Baby-led weaning: what a systematic review of the literature adds on.Italian journal of pediatrics · 2018Pooled it
- Impact of a Modified Version of Baby-Led Weaning on Dietary Variety and Food Preferences in Infants.Nutrients · 2018Trial
- Impact of a Modified Version of Baby-Led Weaning on Infant Food and Nutrient Intakes: The BLISS Randomized Controlled Trial.Nutrients · 2018Trial
- Baby-Led Introduction to SolidS (BLISS) study: a randomised controlled trial of a baby-led approach to complementary feeding.BMC pediatrics · 2015Trial
- How Do Infants Eat at Home? A Preliminary Study of Complementary Feeding Skills in the Naturalistic Environment.American journal of speech-language pathology · 2026Observational
- Complementary Feeding and Risk of Choking: A Survey Among Parents and Primary Care Pediatricians in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Nutritional Management for Pediatric Biliary Atresia Patients Preparing for Liver Transplantation.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Article
- Determinants of infants and young children feeding practices among mothers living in Saudi Arabia: a cross-sectional study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Professional Feeding Guidance Improved Infants' Self-Feeding Proportion during Complementary Foods Introduction in Beijing, China: An Exploratory Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Estimated energy and nutrient intake for infants following baby-led and traditional weaning approaches.Journal of human nutrition and dietetics : the official journal of the British Dietetic Association · 2022Article
- Traditional complementary feeding or BLW (Baby Led Weaning) method? - A cross-sectional study of Polish infants during complementary feeding.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2022Article
- Complementary Feeding Methods-A Review of the Benefits and Risks.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Review
- Brazilian health professionals' perception about the Baby-Led Weaning (BLW) method for complementary feeding: an exploratory study.Revista paulista de pediatria : orgao oficial da Sociedade de Pediatria de Sao Paulo · 2021Article
- BABY-LED WEANING, AN OVERVIEW OF THE NEW APPROACH TO FOOD INTRODUCTION: INTEGRATIVE LITERATURE REVIEW.Revista paulista de pediatria : orgao oficial da Sociedade de Pediatria de Sao Paulo · 2020Review
- Report on advances for pediatricians in 2018: allergy, cardiology, critical care, endocrinology, hereditary metabolic diseases, gastroenterology, infectious diseases, neonatology, nutrition, respiratory tract disorders and surgery.Italian journal of pediatrics · 2019Review
- StandardPublic health nutrition · 2019Article
- Appropriate age range for introduction of complementary feeding into an infant's diet.EFSA journal. European Food Safety Authority · 2019Article
- Transition from tube feeding to oral feeding: experience in a tertiary care paediatric cardiology unit.Irish journal of medical science · 2019Article
- Cross-species comparison of behavioral neurodevelopmental milestones in the common marmoset monkey and human child.Developmental psychobiology · 2017Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The baby-led weaning philosophy proposes that when solids are introduced, infants should be encouraged to self-feed with solid food, as opposed to spoon-feeding purees. We used data from the Gateshead Millennium Study (GMS) to define the range of ages at which infants reach out for and eat finger foods and related this to developmental status. GMS recruited infants shortly after birth and followed them prospectively using postal questionnaires. Of the 923 eligible children, 602 had data on when they first reached out for food, and 340 (56%) had done so before age 6 months, but 36 (6%) were still not reaching for food at age 8 months. Infants who had not reached out for food by 6 months were less likely to be walking unaided at age 1 year (85 out of 224, 38%) compared with those who did (155 out of 286, 54%; P < 0.001). For the 447 parents who completed a diary of the first five occasions when their child ate finger foods, the first finger food eaten was before age 6 months for 170 (40%) and before age 8 months for 383 (90%); foods offered were mainly bread, rusks or biscuits. Of the 604 with information at age 8 months about current intake, all but 58 (9.6%) were having some finger foods at least daily, but only 309 (51%) were having them more than once per day. Baby-led weaning is probably feasible for a majority of infants, but could lead to nutritional problems for infants who are relatively developmentally delayed.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.