On Monday, October 27, 2003, at 02:43  AM, Alex Shvartsman wrote:
> I thought that breast milk will provide my son with all the iron he
> needs for
> brain development.  Do I need to supplement with iron?
>

No, breast milk does NOT provide enough iron, it is nearly iron free.
In nature animals and people get iron by crawling around in the dirt.
Babies are well known for shocking their mommies and eating handfulls
of dirt at any opportunity.

In the modern world our level of cleanliness prevents babies from
getting enough iron naturally. Your doc is right, iron deficiency is
dangerous for babies. I would think that pureed meat would be better
than iron fortified rice though.