The other day I nearly gave my friend a heart attack when I (unassumingly) shared some of my son’s oatmeal with her son during a playdate containing some honey. Since I have been giving my son honey since he started showing interest in solids at seven months, I took it for granted that some parents are not comfortable with using this magic food with their own babies until they are well past their first year. I personally believe that the fear of using honey has grown out of proportion to its actual risks because of media hype, but it’s up to each parent to decide what they are comfortable with and I can respect that choice too. I thought I would at least share some of the reasons why I believe honey isn’t as dangerous as most people believe and offer some of the benefits that swayed me to its usage with my son.
To start, I LOVE honey. I have an ongoing love affair with this product; adding it to pretty much everything I eat myself. That and peanut butter are my staples, which is why I researched well into their risks and benefits before subjecting my son to them because I would die if I had to live without them if I accidentally caused an allergic reaction. To my relief, he has not reacted negatively to either and actually loves both products as much as I do. However I digress.
So how dangerous is honey really? That is the question.
Botulism is a serious but relatively rare disease to begin with, with only 27 cases of it confirmed from 1979 -2006 in Canada; two of which found in Alberta (Source). The majority of the cases are found in the States, mostly around California due to the more frequent spores found in the soil there, though only 10 percent of store-bought samples of honey contained the C.botulinum. Also, less than 5 percent of infant botulism patients contracted the disease from the honey, as researches have concluded that most have simply inhaled the spores from microscopic dust particles. (Source) (Source) This makes us relatively safe here in Canada, with the ability to reduce our chances even more by simply avoiding buying California produced honey. However, even if diagnosed with botulism, the infant fatality rate is less than 2 percent anyways, with a usual full recovery in most cases with proper treatment. These figures tell me that the chances of my son getting it are slim to none, and if even by chance that he does (and I am well versed in the signs just in case), our hospitals have the means to treat it effectively.
Another great way to naturally prevent botulism is by having a vaginal birth and breastfeeding, as botulism spores are unable to grow in more mature intestines because of the beneficial bacteria present (Source)– bacteria that moms pass onto their young through their birth canal and as immunities through their breastmilk. By the time babies are about six month old, their natural defences prevent the germination and growth of Clostridium botulinum to take hold, making the warning to avoid for the entire first year somewhat overkill anyways. (Source) I exclusively breastfed my son until he showed readiness for solids and we introduced healthy foods according to his abilities, abiding by the recommendations for introducing ‘allergy-prone’ foods naturally by following his lead. I trusted the immunities in my breastmilk to protect him from the majority of illnesses and so far this trust has not been misplaced.
The interesting thing is, spores can be found in a variety of foods anyways (Source) (Source) , and so sometimes parents who believe themselves to be vigilant on attempting to prevent botulism are still subjecting their babies to the 'risk' whether they feed them honey or not. A recent case in the United Kingdom was traced to C botulinum spores in powdered infant formula, and in a single instance in Canada not associated with illness, C botulinum spores were identified in an infant cereal. (Source) This tells me that there is far more risk in simply serving processed foods to our babies than giving them a dollop of honey with their oatmeal.
All this aside, honey is actually quite awesome. Not only is it delicious, it has many medicinal benefits. It contains sugars like glucose and fructose and minerals like magnesium, potassium, calcium, sodium chlorine, sulphur, iron and phosphate. It contains vitamins B1, B2, C, B6, B5 and B3 and several different kinds of hormones as well. It is an antiseptic, antioxidant and has cleansing properties. It fights infection and aids in tissue healing and correcting health disorders. It reduces inflammation and scarring and treats digestive problems such as diarrhea, indigestion, stomach ulcers and gastroenteritis. It helps with bad breath, athlete foot, hair loss, sleep disorder, arthritis, acne, and yeast infections. It also makes a great lotion for dry skin and is great as a hair conditioner. It essentially strengthens the immune system while providing awesome taste too!
The minimal risk of botulism just wasn’t enough to deter me from feeding it to my son because of all the medicinal benefits it offers. I rarely follow trends ‘just in case’ and would rather practice moderation instead. I am comfortable taking the ‘risk’ because I feel that I have done all that I can to boost his immune system through breastfeeding and eating wholesome foods regularly. It’s deliciousness was also a winning attribute too!
How do you feel about feeding honey to your children? What lead you to that decision?
This is really interesting. I was wondering about this the other day. Squish was in the mei tai (he'd been asleep but had just woken up) and I was just finishing up some work on the computer, and unbeknownst to me, my 3yo was feeding him the crusts from his honey sandwich. I didn't panic but I did take them away from him. For us, it's not worth the risk. we love honey and are well aware of it's fantastic properties but it's not a massive part of our diet, so we are happy to wait until 1 year. Each to their own, I say! what bothers me is how the government bodies make the recommendations without really giving much information about them. Another prominent example would be safe bottle feeding guidelines. They state that the bottles should be sterilised, the water a certain temperature, etc etc but don't explain why - and i know several people who don't bother to sterilise past the first couple of weeks because they don't understand why they should.
ReplyDeleteWhoa, talk about a tangent. lol. tl;dr - gov. agencies should explain their reccomendations better so that people can make actual informed decisions about their family's health.
Hi, I know this post is old, but since I was researching the topic your blog came up. I too have been questioning the advice of not feeding babies honey, on the vague notion that it may contain botulism spores. Since you wrote such a nice summary, I will add my findings to your post.
ReplyDeleteWhen I try to find confirmed cases of honey being the culprit, there's always mention that it is "associated" with honey, (as indeed spores have been found in honey), but I find very little information on actual infections from honey.
One of the often cited researches on the honey-botulism link, SS Anon, says that "The known ubiquitous distribution of C. botulinum implies that exposure to its spores is universal". Universal. Not honey specific. http://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476%2879%2980863-X/abstract
He soundly and logically continues with advising that, since spores have been found in honey, better avoid it. He is not saying it is the cause of infant botulism. Yet this is often the conclusion of later scientists citing his work. (Wikipedia for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_botulism#cite_note-honey-risk-3)
Maybe the single biggest indicator of honey not being the source of infant botulism lies in the simple fact that infant botulism numbers have been stable for the last 30 years (US dominant), and in the only case I found where honey was conclusively linked to botulism (Same type of spores found in child and in source) was with home-canned honey. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8150073)
Home canning is a known risk and source for botulism, regardless of what is being canned. I found numerous studies matching the type of botulism in infant and source. http://www.archivesofpathology.org/doi/pdf/10.1043/1543-2165%282004%29128%3C653:CBATCL%3E2.0.CO;2
Another indication is that infant botulism numbers have remained stable, even if most parents for the last 20 years heed the advice of not giving honey to infants. If honey was the culprit, surely numbers should fall. They have not. Hence source for botulism is probably elsewhere.
I suspect that nobody actually dares question the conventional wisdom, for the risk of being blamed for infant deaths should they be wrong. This is ridiculous. In New Zealand, where they have not been able to find any spores of botulim in either honey or elsewhere, they shrink their advice to not feeding infants below 6 months honey. This in the face no reported cases of botulism in New Zealand ever (!), and honey imports strictly controlled. (http://www.foodsafety.govt.nz/elibrary/industry/Risk_Profile_Clostridium-Science_Research.pdf)
Review of infant botulism scientific papers. http://www.airborne.co.nz/images/technical/BOTULISM.PDF.
So I think it is high time to start taking advantage of the healthy aspects of honey for infants, and stop this no-honey nonsense, which seems utterly unfounded.
Anyway, since I got into this research for the antimicrobial effects of honey for topical application to wounds, let me relate these findings too.
ReplyDeleteI was fascinated by the antimicrobial effects of honey in wounds but got interested in the the possible risk of infection of the wound with botulism.
Nobody seems to have investigated this possibility, which would be terrible. (To potentially put a very aggressive bacteria directly into an extremely vulnerable open wound.)
Despite not finding any studies on this, I now believe that the antimicrobial properties of honey actually prevent any secondary botulism infection coming from that honey. This is for a number of reasons.
First a concept known as "water activity" relates to how water moves between different materials. Honey has a low activity of (0.6), whereas microbes need substances with a water activity of 0.9 or above to feed and replicate. Air has a water activity of 0.7, so even an unopened can of honey will not saturate to the point of microbial growth, (even if other properties of honey would have stopped that too).
(Some yeasts, however, require a water level of only 0.7, and this is how the alcoholic drink of mead would be produced, when a specific yeast would be added to a mix of water and honey.) But, I too, digress.
One implication of the water activity is that honey is hygroscopic. That means it attracts humidity from its surroundings. Hence it will pull the water from existing live bacteria in a wound and hence kill them by suffocation.
Should there be any bacteria left, yet another property of honey comes into effect. Honey contains an enzyme that, in the right conditions, will react and produce small amounts of hydrogen peroxide (a bactericide and sterilising agent).
Right conditions would be a high ph, humid and slightly salty environment. Or, to put it another way, an open wound or a burn. As it pulls water out of the wound, suffocating bacteria along the way, it reacts with its own sugar to create a continuous membrane of low-intensity hydrogen peroxide, killing off any surviving microbes.
Finally, the process of pulling water keeps the wound moist, but not wet, and this additionally encourages healing.
This eventually slows down when the honey becomes saturated with water, though the effect continues. This would be the time to reapply honey and repeat the process.
Read more here
http://www.prlog.org/10227103-the-hydrogen-peroxide-producing-capacity-of-honey.html,
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01338.htm
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/The_Hydrogen_Peroxide_Producing_Capacity_of_Honey.html