Buzz
Essential for bone growth and strength
Regulates cardiovascular, digestive, and chemical reactions systems
Acts as catalysts for enzyme processing
Component of proteins, fats in tissues, cells
Coordinates with hormones, stimulates functions in the body
Maintains fluid balance in the body
In reality, the body doesn't require minerals in the form of supplements, nor does it need excessive doses (megadoses) of minerals. The interplay of minerals, vitamins, nutrients, and various substances within the body is highly complex. Therefore, an excess of any component can lead to imbalance and hinder normal nutrient absorption.
3. Types of Minerals
3.1. Iron
Iron helps the body's immune system in infants thrive. Additionally, it plays a role in forming red blood cells and giving them their red color. Iron is involved in physical, mental, and emotional development in young children.
Newborns typically have an abundant reserve of iron at birth, usually sufficient for their needs in the first 4-6 months of life. However, preterm infants may lack some or all of the important iron reserves accumulated in the third trimester of pregnancy. This, coupled with growth spurts, can deplete a preterm infant's iron reserves in just 2-3 months.
3.2. Folic Acid:
Folic acid plays a role in red blood cell formation and ensures a healthy nervous system for children. Therefore, feeding your child foods containing folic acid can enhance intelligence, reduce the risk of neural tube defects, and autism spectrum disorders.
3.3. Fats:
Fats, as essential nutrients, play a crucial role in the body, serving as a vital energy source for children's development, especially for brain and visual development. Include various vegetable oils and lean animal fats in your child's diet to ensure the necessary fat intake.
3.4. Choline:
Choline is one of the essential nutrients that support normal brain development in children. Additionally, choline promotes the metabolism of fats in the body, ensuring motor function and memory capabilities in children. To enhance learning and memory retention in children, don't forget to supplement with choline.
3.5. Calcium:
Milk is rich in calcium supplementation.
Calcium helps infants achieve optimal bone density, necessary for strong bone formation and preventing fractures when infants climb or engage in sports.
6. Zinc:
In addition to its positive effects on cognition and development, zinc's primary role is to maintain immune function and ensure optimal cell growth and repair. Zinc deficiency is associated with decreased growth, increased susceptibility to infections, and the risk of diarrhea.
Formula milk provides adequate zinc for infants, but breast milk does not. Therefore, it's important to ensure that infants consume zinc-rich foods in the latter half of the first year of life. Children from 7 months to 3 years old need 3mg of zinc per day.
4. How to Supplement Minerals for Babies
Sources of iron in foods: Meat and fish are natural sources of iron, you can feed your baby with additional beef, chicken, and fish. Some other sources of iron include: avocados, potatoes, broccoli, eggs, soybeans, and spinach. Eggs, fish, beef, liver, and dark green leafy vegetables are rich sources of iron for children.
Mothers can find sources of folic acid for their children in foods such as dark green vegetables, broccoli, beans, cereals, oranges, avocado, and tomatoes, all of which contain high levels of folic acid.
Provide choline to children through foods such as milk, eggs, liver, and peanuts.
Every 50g of pork loin contains approximately 2mg of zinc, every 250g of yogurt contains 1.6mg of zinc, and half a chicken breast contains 1mg of zinc. Other zinc-rich food sources include beef, fish, eggs, pure fresh milk, cheddar cheese, poultry, and fish. So, if you feed your baby enough iron-rich foods, chances are your baby will also be provided with enough zinc.
Breast milk and formula provide enough calcium for babies in their first year. When you switch to feeding your baby pure cow's milk, they need to consume 500mg of calcium daily.
For optimal absorption of these minerals, mothers need to supplement their children with prebiotics. Some animal studies have shown that prebiotics in the body help increase calcium absorption in the colon, enhance absorption of calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, and stimulate phytic acid hydrolyzing bacteria to improve mineral absorption. Therefore, the mineral absorption process is also enhanced. Prebiotics are also abundant in various foods, or mothers can supplement their children with prebiotics through probiotics containing this ingredient. Currently, there are many types of probiotics on the market containing prebiotics for mothers to choose from. The more modern the probiotic manufacturing technology, the more superior its features. It can be seen that the most advanced probiotic production technology today is the DUOLACTM dual-coated technology, which extracts probiotics from Korean kimchi - a popular food very good for health.
