The COVID-19 pandemic made the recruitment and follow-up of this study impractical.

The study evaluates the the utility of a non-invasive skin measurement as a biomarker of infant food intake during complementary feeding.

RATIONALE: During infancy, children go from consuming primarily breast milk or formula, to consuming a variety of baby foods and table foods. Doctors, researchers, and community health workers are interested in knowing what foods infants eat, but since many infants have multiple adult caregivers, it can be hard for one caregiver to accurately recall the dietary pattern of the infant. A rapid, non-invasive biomarker of food intake in infants could serve as a useful monitoring tool.

PURPOSE: In order to develop a non-invasive measure of infant food intake, the association between infant dietary patterns, skin carotenoids, and blood carotenoids will be evaluated at 4, 6, and 8 months of age.

OUTLINE: Infants will visit the research center at 4, 6, and 8 months of age for length, weight, skinfold thickness, and skin colorant measures. An infant blood sample will be collected at each visit and lactating mothers will be asked to provide a breast milk sample. The caregiver will complete a food survey at each visit, will keep an infant food diary for a week at 4, 6, and 8 months of age, and will enter the food diaries into an online survey 3 times during each of the diary weeks.

Inclusion Criteria:

• 4-4.5 months old at baseline
• born at term (>/=37 weeks gestation)
• within the 5th-95th weight-for-age percentile (inclusive)
• primary caregiver can speak, read, and understand English
• infants are exclusively breast- and/or formula-feeding at baseline
• consenting parent or caregiver must be 18 years old or older

Exclusion Criteria:

• has a sibling enrolled in the study
• metabolic, digestive, or malabsorptive disorders
• known bleeding or clotting disorder
• requires a special diet
• exposed to tobacco smoke in the home
• currently taking any isolated carotenoid supplements
• using medications or complementary or alternative medications that interfere with dietary fat absorption
• has a history of endocrine disorders requiring hormone administration.

Subjects will be recruited using the CNRC and BCM clinical study recruitment websites and listservs, the CNRC volunteer database, word of mouth, and approved flyers posted on the BCM campus, the Texas Children's Health Plan Center for Women and Children clinics, the Texas Children's Hospital/Baylor College of Medicine (TCH/BCM) pediatric clinics, and the TCH/BCM obstetrics and gynecology clinics. We will also distribute flyers in-person (pending the permission of the clinic) in the waiting rooms of the TCH/BCM pediatrics and Texas Children's Health Plan Clinic and at sites throughout the community.

1 year

The group sizes for this study were small, participants were recruited from only one geographic location in the US, there is an increase risk of type I error due to multiple testing, only infants with minimal solid food intake were eligible to enroll at 4 months, which may not be representative of the general 4 month old infant population.