A Qualitative Study of Mothers’ Perceptions of Weaning and the Use of Commercial Infant Food in the United Kingdom

Background: Commercially produced infant food has a different taste profile and nutritional content to homemade baby food and its consumption is now very widespread. This change in early food experience may lead to a reduced dietary variety and a decreased microbial load exposure. Objective: The purpose of this study was to gain insight into parental perceptions of complementary feeding, specifically opinions of commercially produced baby food, using qualitative research methods. Methods: Four focus group discussions took place (n = 24), with mothers of infants aged 4-7 months. Half of participants were first time mothers and a third had experience weaning infants with symptoms of cows' milk allergy. Participants were prompted with questions about complementary feeding and shown several different products to stimulate discussion. Results: Thematic analysis of focus groups indicated that three distinctive groups of mothers exist; "relaxed", "concerned" and "balanced", which may be influenced by parity, socioeconomic status and previous experience of weaning. The majority of mothers commenced the weaning process using homemade foods, but transitioned to include commercial baby foods after 3-6 weeks. Commercial baby food was perceived as more convenient to homemade baby food by the majority and as superior and "safer" by some mothers. Although there were concerns raised about the identity of ingredients, few concerns were expressed regarding nutritional quality or allergen content, even by mothers with experience of weaning an infant with food allergic symptoms. Conclusion: Overall complementary feeding was viewed as a natural process with the goal of enjoyment of food and development of a broad palate. Opinions on readymade baby food were influenced by parity, education level and previous experience of weaning. *Corresponding author: Kate Maslin, Senior Research Fellow, School of Health Sciences and Social Work, University of Portsmouth, White Swan Road, Portsmouth, PO1 2DT, UK, Tel: 02392 844494; E-mail: [email protected] Received November 03, 2015; Accepted November 30, 2015; Published December 04, 2015 Citation: Maslin K, Galvin AD, Shepherd S, Dean T, Dewey A, et al. (2015) A Qualitative Study of Mothers’ Perceptions of Weaning and the Use of Commercial Infant Food in the United Kingdom. Maternal and Paediatric Nutrition Journal 1: 103. doi:10.4172/mpn.1000103 Copyright: © 2015 Maslin K, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. foods is central to all of these discussions. However, parental awareness and concerns about these issues have not been studied. The use of commercial infant food in the UK is widespread. Data from a national infant feeding study indicates that on the day prior to the questionnaire, a greater proportion of infants aged 4-6 months were fed ready-made baby food than homemade baby food (38% compared to 28%) [10]. In addition, almost half (45%) of mothers of 8-10 month-old babies use commercially prepared baby foods at least once a day, with infants aged ten months or older more likely to be included in family meals [10]. Similarly, in the United States (US), it has been reported that 73-95% of infants between 4-12 months consume commercially produced baby foods [11]. Usage of these products may be influenced Citation: Maslin K, Galvin AD, Shepherd S, Dean T, Dewey A, et al. (2015) A Qualitative Study of Mothers’ Perceptions of Weaning and the Use of Commercial Infant Food in the United Kingdom. Maternal and Paediatric Nutrition Journal 1: 103. doi:10.4172/mpn.1000103