Infant feeding practices and early neurodevelopment

Texture matters- Food pieces and developmental milestones

Objectives and Study: While breastfeeding practices and age at complementary feeding introduction are well-recognised features of infant feeding, introduction to food texture has received little attention. Yet, timely exposure to diverse food textures could relate to later development of eating skills for proper chewing of food pieces, eating behaviour patterns and ultimately healthy growth. Moreover, the muscles involved in chewing praxis are the same as those involved in language praxis. The present study investigates the effects of introduction of food pieces on the development of gross motor skills and language expression in early life. - Methods We used data from the ELFE study (Étude …