http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2712604/Baby-given-botulism-dummy-fights-for-life.html

Poor mite hope he gets better soon. Why would anyone dip a 16 week olds dummy in anything let alone honey????

Why why why??

omg! who in their right mind wld do that! i thought it was a well known fact about honey! but really a 16wk old shldn't be having its dummy dipped in anything, let alone honey! x

Why would you do that? My inital response to reading that was tottaly unprintable, some people shouldn't be allowed children.

Thats terrible. I think the dipping dummies in something sweet is from years ago. My partners Gran (whos 78) couldnt believe that I tried Reece with a dummy without dipping it in honey!! Im very glad that I stuck to my guns. Hope the little mite gets better soon.

I personally would never do it but we just don't the full facts.

Years ago dipping dummies was thought good to help soothe a screeming baby. Maybe the parents just thought they were helping. Maybe they had come to the end of there teather if he was a screamer.

I can't imagine how bad they are feeling. Not just worry about his health and condition but the guilt they must be feeling.

Admittidly the wrong thing to do but possibley with the right intentions. Botulism poisioning is so so very rare now.

Kerry, Freya and Erin
X X X

I agree with PumkinPatch - there are so many rules and guidelines these days, It can be hard to know which ones are important and which are just the rule of the week. Maybe they thought that a tiny bit wouldn't hurt? Whatever they thought, we don't know the facts so we really shouldn't judge.

Can't imagine what they must be going through - hope he gets better soon.

xxx

i have to jump in to these peoples defence (before ive even read the article lol) as when abby was about a month old we were advised by the PHARMACIST to add a little honey to cooled boiled water to ease constipation. well it certianly cleared her out! i mentioned it to my health visitor who was appalled that we were told to do this, but was very nice about it. I felt sooo guilty about it and genuinely didn't know what harm it could have done. I think we are so bogged down by silly little guidelines that the important 'rules' are being overlooked much too often.

OMG I didn't even know honey could do that to a baby!!!!!
Obviously I wouldn't dip a dummy into anything but if I liked honey myself I probably wouldn't have thought twice about giving it to my children on toast or something once they were into finger foods!!
I can't believe it, such a scary thought!

totally agree ive never even heard that honey could do any harm to baby x

TBH I'm quite suprised that people don't know about honey being dangerous for under 1's. It's not new advice, I certainly knew about it when Millie was tiny 3 years ago, so I kind of just assumed it was common knowledge.
xx

I have no idea about the parents but this isn't advice that a HV automatically doles out as soon as Lo is born....You've got to actually read and research this stuff...And if the parents were illiterate or near to it (and some people are, more than you'd think) they wouldn't bother and would just take advice off others (probably older people who did it with their children). I'm not saying that is true but it's a possibility.

I think a lot of people are unaware that honey can be dangerous to babies - but it does actually say on the containers 'not suitable for infants under 12 months' - I know we don't always read these things but I think the fact it's there shows it is fairly serious.

When the new guidelines about not giving cough medicines to under 2s hit the news earlier this year, one of the alternatives suggested in the press was honey and lemon drinks - I couldn't believe this advice was being given!

Oh, and my HV did a weaning talk which included explaining not to give honey - it should be publicised more

[Modified by: *Sunflower81* on November 04, 2009 09:57 PM]

Just read via the link.

I would never give food other than milk to a young baby full stop.

I just knew not to give honey due to high sugar content. I have never thought about looking into it in more detail or what could actually happen.

In defence of the parents, who knows, their baby may ahve been a very crying/screaming baby and a grandma or someone may have suggested it. Being at the end of their tether they may have just done it.
Like someone else said we dont know the full facts so I dont think we should judge.

The fact that it has made the paper headlines means it has now warned others about it. You hear so much about not eating nuts, and other advice etc but something like honey I have only ever seen it mentioned on here. I guess hv may never mention it and just presume people know not to give young babies food other than milk. xxx

Hopefully this article will raise awareness. I dont think this has been overly promoted, I know I read it in the 0-5 book that the midwives gave me, but dont recall seeing it anywhere else, and as previously stated the government recently recommended honey and lemon drinks for under 2s with coughs. Very confusing advice.

joannemarie, i was just abbout to say the same , that its in the nhs book the hv gives u., also its in all weaning books i've looked thru (gina ford, annabel karmel etc) and as someone stated earlier its on the product itself, which just shows how dangerous it is, as far as i'm aware peanuts don't have on them 'not for under 5s' and salt certainly doesn't have an age limit on it. i know ppl are justifying this with 'but theres so many rules hard to know which ones to listen to' but surely advice is there for a reason and when its ur childs health at stake maybe its best to be safe than sorry, or at least check it out. i don't take anything my grandparents say as red when it ciomes to ds, back in their day it wasn't a bad thing to smoke when pregnant, or dip a babies dummy in alcohol (which my mum suggested i do several times!!) doesn't mean i'll listen to them tho (which i must add i certainly did not listen to my mum lol before anyone gets the wrong idea lol). austin is 7months and has never had his dummy dipped in anything, mainly cos i don't want him to expect his dumy to taste 'nice' everytime or rot is gums/teeth with sugar.

hmmm....not heard that cough glycerine advice, when ds had a cough last month i asked the pharmacist if there was anthing i cld give him and she said no, so i didn't.

xxx

just found a bottle of boots honey and lemon glycerine that i bought a month or two back and it says not for use under 1s. so maybe when they say under 2 they mean between 1-2, as cough medcines don't start til 2+. not sure tho but def says not for under 1s. xx

[Modified by: siany on November 05, 2009 10:13 AM]

I certainly don't follow all the guidlines! Abby and I are both very chilled out about everything - which is better for us, but I understand that some parents feel more secure with rules to follow (this would drive me mad though - so I just muddle through).

At the end of the day, we all know how hard it is to bring up a baby, so we should be sending this family support, rather than critising them for one mistake. Imagine how you would feel if you had done something that you didn't know was harmful and your baby nearly died because of it (none of us are perfect after all!).

xxx

There is a big difference between guidelines and safety advice though, I don't suppose anyone thinks that ignoring the car seat rules is a good idea do they?

As I said before, I assumed that the fact that honey was dangerous for babies was common knowledge. It seems it's not and if this babies parents didn't know about it then of course they shouldn't be critisced. If they did know about it and choose to ignore the 'rules' then they are stupid. Either way I hope that the baby makes a full recovery.
xx

It depends what you mean about the car seat rule - bedhead. The latest car seat guidlines say that children should stay rear facing until they are 4 years old - I certainly will not be following that, because it would be totally unpractical in my car, and I believe that the benefits to Abby's social development outweigh the risks in a crash. Abby will go FF as soon as she is too long for her cabrio fix (which will be in a few weeks - and certainly before 9 months) because I feel that she will be safer in a good quality FF seat, than in a RF one that is too small.

If I crash and Abby gets seriously injured, I will feel terrible - but I hope people wont judge me too harshly for it, or say that I shouldn't have been allowed to have her.

xxx

Hi, this is definitely not 'new' advice as I knew about it with ds1 (now 7yrs old). I read it in the nhs baby book as well, and in a magazine and I knew it was because of the botchulism risk not just because of the sugar.

I never gave it much thought as there is no way I would give a baby honey for any reason! I also thought the guidelines were no honey for under 3's, not just babies.

I can believe that some parents don't know this though, I know not every parent swots up on parenting like I did and I know that in our grandmothers generation they did used to dip dummies in honey and jam, and god forbid even add whiskey to a bottle to help baby sleep!!

I guess there are still some of these grandparent's around (and pharmacists!!) who give parents advice without knowing the risk. Also, don't forget there are plenty of people that just ignore the advice anyway!

On don't tell the bride last night, there was a boy having choc milk in a baby bottle! Cdn't believe that!