At What Age Can You Give A Baby Water?
Why Can't Babies Have Water?
Before knowing the answer, why drinking water harmful for a newborn?
let’s understand Why WHO guidelines say to give only breast milk to 6-month-old babies.
An average healthy adult human contains 55 to 63 percent water of body weight, and it varies depending on factors such as sex and age. But on the other hand, newborn babies contained 70 to 83 percent of body weight.
And after six months of age, it will gradually decrease. From six months to one-year baby contained 57 to 64 percent of body weight.
So, the percentage of water a newborn baby has in their body indicated that they need no extra water other than breast milk.
Now, you have a question in your mind, and that is –
How can only breast milk is sufficient for a baby till 6 months of age?
First look at the composition of breast milk –
- 88 percent Water.
- 0.8 to 0.9 percent of Protein.
- 4.5 percent of Fat.
- 7.1 percent of Carbohydrates.
- 0.2 percent of Minerals.
- Digestive enzymes and Hormones.
From this composition, you can easily understand that breast milk has all the nutrition values and water that baby needs which will boost their immunity and quenches their thirst and hunger.
Why Drinking Water Harmful For a Newborn?
As long as your babies being breastfed or even formula-fed you don’t need to give water.
- If you realized that your baby feeling thirsty and you gave them water,
Then it will be filling up the tummy and postpone the feed that the baby wants to gain good weight.
- By the simple steps, you can understand that why the intake of water harmful to the newborn.
- Step 1: Human kidneys have a limit to how much water they can filter,
- Step 2: When breaks that limit then the excess water get back into your bloodstream,
- Step 3: Where it dilutes the salt or sodium in the blood,
- Step 4: Once sodium levels in the blood drop below 0.4 ounces per gallon, then a risky condition formed called HYPONATREMIA. It happens when cells try to increase sodium levels to normal by absorbing the extra water and swell up and causing complications like confusion, vomiting, muscle spasms.
And if you keep drinking, that excess water will eventually reach the cell in your brain. By this point, you have a dangerous case of WATER INTOXICATION.
It occurs when brain cells swell and build up pressure inside the skull, which can lead to Seizures, brain damage, and in severe conditions death.
For a newborn, their kidneys are about half the size of an adult and are not developed enough yet to properly filter water, and any water that enters their body ends up in the circulatory system, where it dilutes their blood and increases the water levels.
Here are a few common mistakes through which babies can intake extra water into their bodies. Those are,
- Parents add extra water to their baby formula as recommended.
- Parents dunk their infant up and down in a swimming pool or bathtub. During this process, the infant gulps too much water.
At What Age Can You Give a Baby Water?
As long as your babies being breastfed or even formula-fed you don’t need to give water.
And after the age of 6 months, when they start to eat solid foods, you can give them water in a small quantity till one year of age and later on you can give them as they required because from 1 to 12 years of age their body contained 60 percent of water, which is very close to a healthy adult human have.
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