Author Topic: Honey for Young Children and Infants (Read 5473 times)

Tucker1 · « **on:** June 07, 2010, 07:31:49 pm »

In the past, I heard that you shouldn't give honey to children under 2 for a health reason. Does anyone know if that's correct and what the problem might be? Is it an age issue or a child size issue?

Regards,
Tucker1

Kathyp · « **Reply #1 on:** June 07, 2010, 07:34:46 pm »

children under the age of 2 run the risk of developing infant botulism. over the age of two, their immune systems should be developed enough to handle it. good thing my mom, grandma, and us kids didn't know that as we dipped bippies in honey for the babies :-D

iddee · « **Reply #2 on:** June 07, 2010, 07:47:38 pm »

Botulism spores are in the ground and all around. Honey has been singled out picked on about it for some time. The truth is NO raw food should be given to small babies. Apple, orange, honey, tomato, or anything else. All for the same reason Kathy cited. All baby foods should be well cooked, including honey.

riverrat · « **Reply #3 on:** June 07, 2010, 08:24:33 pm »

we was told at one of our annual bee meetings by a bee researcher from I believe the university of Kansas or Ohio. That honey has only been linked to a very small amount of infants deaths. Even those deaths there is some uncertainty as to wether honey actually was the cause. A child is born with a certain amount of protection from the mother after birth the infant build up there own resistance. Although growing up about all our parents used honey on our bottles and pacifiers with no problems. There is always a chance thus the warning

Scadsobees · « **Reply #4 on:** June 07, 2010, 10:21:17 pm »

botulism poisoning occurs in infants when they are too small to have any natural flora or fauna in their gut. Before they start on food, their intestines don't have the ability to handle any more than milk. The botulism bacteria can survive and thrive in that non-acidic environment, and if an infection occurs will slowly grow and slowly poison the child, causing a slow and unexplained wasting.

Once the child is eating more than milk, the gut is more mature and acidic and thus able to handle the spores and bacteria. Most infant can easily handle honey by 9 months old, but they build in a huge safety factor.

The botulism spore isn't poison of itself. As mentioned, it is common out there. Raw veggies should never be fed to infants either, not that any baby could knaw up a carrot... :roll:

This isn't the same as the botulism poisoning in canned goods - same bacteria, different situation. In canned goods, the bacteria thrives and builds up high levels of the toxin, not the bacteria, but the poison that it produces that hurts adults. In infants a colony of botulism bacteria thrives and produces low levels that hurts the child.

Rick

AllenF · « **Reply #5 on:** June 07, 2010, 10:29:13 pm »

Honey is the only known dietary reservoir of C. botulinum spores linked to infant botulism. For this reason honey should not be fed to infants less than one year of age. Due to the success of this public health message, fewer than 5% of recent infant botulism cases have been exposed to honey. The remaining 95% of infant botulism cases are thought to have acquired the spores from the natural environment. Clostridium botulinum is a ubiquitous soil-dwelling bacterium, and is found in soils throughout the US. Many infant botulism patients have been demonstrated to live near a construction site or an area of soil disturbance.

Infant botulism was first recognized in 1976, and is the most common form of botulism in the United States. There are 80 - 100 diagnosed cases of infant botulism in the United States each year. Infants are susceptible to infant botulism in the first year of life, with more than 90% of cases occurring in infants younger than six months.[2] Infant botulism results from the ingestion of the C. botulinum spores, and subsequent colonization of the small intestine. The infant gut may be colonized when the composition of the intestinal microflora (normal flora) is insufficient to competitively inhibit the growth of C. botulinum. Medical science does not yet completely understand all factors that make an infant susceptible to C. botulinum colonization. The growth of the spores releases botulinum toxin, which is then absorbed into the bloodstream and taken throughout the body, causing paralysis by blocking the release of acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction. Typical symptoms of infant botulism include constipation, lethargy, weakness, difficulty feeding and an altered cry, often progressing to a complete descending flaccid paralysis. Although constipation is usually the first symptom of infant botulism, it is commonly overlooked.

iddee · « **Reply #6 on:** June 07, 2010, 10:44:51 pm »

So, it looks like 100 cases a year, 95 of which are not from honey. That leaves 5 cases a year blamed on honey, although those haven't been confirmed.

Sounds like a real dangerous situation to me. Those 5 could well have had other maladies that we don't know about, also.

Michael Bush · « **Reply #7 on:** June 08, 2010, 12:24:12 am »

>NO raw food should be given to small babies. Apple, orange, honey, tomato, or anything else.

Exactly. I don't know why they dingle out honey. I don't see lables on the apples saying not to feed them to infants...

But honey has always been and still is a common ingredient in baby formula all over the world. Just not here, now. But up until the 70's it was common here as well. Interesting that it was almost universal in it's use and no one made any connection to health issues, in fact the opposite observation had been made over the centuries...

Scadsobees · « **Reply #8 on:** June 08, 2010, 09:01:05 am »

Quote from: Michael Bush on June 08, 2010, 12:24:12 am

>NO raw food should be given to small babies. Apple, orange, honey, tomato, or anything else.

Exactly. I don't know why they dingle out honey. I don't see lables on the apples saying not to feed them to infants...

Because there isn't any other raw foods that babies are going to be able to eat, or want to if they could. Honey, though, a natural sweetener.....

If you can pasteurize the honey it is fine for babies.

iddee · « **Reply #9 on:** June 08, 2010, 09:54:46 am »

Cows milk, goat milk, bananas, peaches, to name a few, and if you consider up to 2 years old, many others are fed raw.

Scadsobees · « **Reply #10 on:** June 08, 2010, 10:21:16 am »

The age cutoff I've heard is 1 year and a quick web search confirms that. I'm not sure where the 2 years came from.
They aren't going to eat much raw foods before 1 year old...ok, maybe bananas, but I wouldn't think that much of a threat anyway. I think raw animal milk for babies is a horrible idea in general, and isn't recommended for adults much less for babies.

By 12 months, most babies have been eating big-people food already, so have the gut bacteria and conditions so that the botulism bacteria can't survive there. Which is good, because by then my kids had all ingested vast quantities of dirt!!! :roll:

This one includes corn syrup in there with honey.
http://www.squidoo.com/honeydanger

indypartridge · « **Reply #11 on:** June 08, 2010, 12:41:49 pm »

There was an article on this in Bee Culture last fall (Sep 2010) by Ross Conrad:
http://www.beeculture.com/storycms/index.cfm?cat=Story&recordID=665

A month or so later, there was an excellent rebuttal article which doesn't appear to be online. I don't have my hardcopies handy, so I can't look up the exact month.

luvin honey · « **Reply #12 on:** June 08, 2010, 01:32:13 pm »

Quote from: Scadsobees on June 08, 2010, 10:21:16 am

The age cutoff I've heard is 1 year and a quick web search confirms that. I'm not sure where the 2 years came from.
They aren't going to eat much raw foods before 1 year old...ok, maybe bananas, but I wouldn't think that much of a threat anyway. I think raw animal milk for babies is a horrible idea in general, and isn't recommended for adults much less for babies.

By 12 months, most babies have been eating big-people food already, so have the gut bacteria and conditions so that the botulism bacteria can't survive there. Which is good, because by then my kids had all ingested vast quantities of dirt!!! :roll:

This one includes corn syrup in there with honey.
http://www.squidoo.com/honeydanger

My kids ate a ton of raw before before age 1, just pureed. Pretty much just fruit, if I remember correctly. If I could do it over, I would be way more concerned about pesticides than honey...

Kathyp · « **Reply #13 on:** June 08, 2010, 02:17:47 pm »

i think i put 2 in my post, but you are correct, they say no honey for babies under 1. children do not have mature, or active enough, immune systems under the age of 2. that's why they recommended things like flu shots for kids under 2.

luvin honey · « **Reply #14 on:** June 08, 2010, 02:22:22 pm »

Quote from: kathyp on June 08, 2010, 02:17:47 pm

i think i put 2 in my post, but you are correct, they say no honey for babies under 1. children do not have mature, or active enough, immune systems under the age of 2. that's why they recommended things like flu shots for kids under 2.

Actually, they recommend the flu shot for all ages these days.

The honey thing is interesting. Breastfed babies have great immunity. Is it our actual immune system that is involved in botulism poisoning? I don't quite understand that. We can still die of botulism at older ages. Is it just that we can "fight it" when in smaller doses such as in honey versus larger doses such as in poorly canned green beans?

deknow · « **Reply #15 on:** June 08, 2010, 02:35:05 pm »

no, adult botulism poisoning is from toxin produced in improperly canned goods.

in infant botulism, the lack of acid in the digestive tract makes the digestive tract act as a "can"...the botulism is growing in the infant as it does in a can.

at farmers markets, i hear parents quoting their doctors as up to 3 years...and even some not to eat raw foods while pregnant!

the research upon which all of this is based seems to say that 26 weeks on is ok for honey.

deknow

luvin honey · « **Reply #16 on:** June 08, 2010, 02:46:13 pm »

Thanks for the info, deknow!

I have a couple questions/thoughts:

1. Are we more susceptible to bugs these days since our immune systems are relatively coddled food wise? With more food pasteurized and irradiated, perhaps we are not used to encountering other organisms in our guts any more. Remember the research showing that kids raised in sterile environments actually had MORE allergy and asthma problems?

2. Where/how does botulism enter the hive?

deknow · « **Reply #17 on:** June 08, 2010, 02:50:56 pm »

1. go to rural mexico and drink the water..watch what happens to you vs. someone that was born and raised there. this is quite separate from the infant botulism risk, which has to do with stomach acidity, not the immune system.

2. in the california study (which all the warnings are based upon), 20 or 30% of the raw honey they tested had botulism spores....100% of the vacuum cleaner bags and backyard dirt had botulism spores. the spores are everywhere. the "logic" behind not giving honey to infants is that it is an avoidable source of ingested spores....it's probably just as important to not vacuum the house with an infant in it without a hepafilter.

deknow

luvin honey · « **Reply #18 on:** June 08, 2010, 02:54:16 pm »

Quote from: deknow on June 08, 2010, 02:50:56 pm

1. go to rural mexico and drink the water..watch what happens to you vs. someone that was born and raised there.

Right, that's my point. We normally would ingest small amounts of germs from our environment, building immunity as we go. Versus getting a large dose of the germ later in life...

Scadsobees · « **Reply #19 on:** June 08, 2010, 04:53:32 pm »

Quote from: luvin honey on June 08, 2010, 02:46:13 pm

2. Where/how does botulism enter the hive?

If you set the boxes down on the ground, the frames occasionally get set down, the bees crawl on the ground disposing of dead bodies, dust in the air, dust on the flowers, etc etc.

While it doesn't apply to botulism directly, you are correct about the germ and immunity thing. We always serve and make the kids eat a portion of a dirt pie every day at supper time. Fills them up better and saves on groceries too!! (ok, I'm making that last bit up :-D )