Commercial baby foods do not meet the nutritional needs of infants who are being weaned onto solids, new research indicates.

Scottish scientists looked at commercial baby foods available in the UK, including foods made by Cow & Gate, Hipp Organic, Boots and Ella's Kitchen. These products are widely available in Ireland as well.

They looked at readymade meals, as well as dry foods which require milk or water to be added, such as cereals and rusks. No baby drinks, including milk, were included in the research.

The study focused specifically on foods aimed at infants who are being weaned. Infants are recommended to be weaned as close to six months as possible and no earlier than four months (17 weeks). Until then, breast milk is recommended. Where breastfeeding does not take place, formula milk should be provided.

According to the scientists from the University of Glasgow, the aim of weaning is to introduce a baby to a wider range of tastes, flavours and textures, and to boost their nutrient and energy intake. By the age of six months, milk alone will no longer satisfy their hunger and nutritional needs.

The scientists looked at things such as calories, added salt, added sugar, iron content, protein content and calcium content.

Altogether, 472 products were looked at. Most of these could be given to the child with a spoon immediately, i.e. no preparation was required, and almost half of the products were aimed at babies from the age of four months.

The study found that most of the foods provided little extra nutritional goodness over breast milk. For example, the energy content of foods that could be given with a spoon immediately were almost the same as breast milk and the protein content was just 40% higher.

While products that contained meat had the highest iron content, these levels were not that much higher when compared with non-meat products. Furthermore, the iron content was actually no higher than the iron content provided by formula milk.

Dry finger foods meanwhile were found to be very high in sugar.

In fact, two in three of the products overall were found to be sweet foods. The scientists believe that manufacturers use sweet ingredients so much because babies have an innate preference for sweet things.

They warned that repeated exposure to sweet foods during infancy ‘promotes acceptable and references'.

Meanwhile, when the shop-bought baby foods were compared with typical home-made foods, the nutrient density in the ready meals was usually found to be much lower. In other words, the children obtained much more nutrients from the home-made food.

The scientists also noted that many of the commercial foods were aimed at children from the age of four months, when they should still be on a milk-only diet.

"The most commonly used commercial foods considered in this study supply no more energy than breast or formula milk and yet they are promoted at an age when they will replace the breast (or formula milk), which is all that babies under six months really need," they said.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, Archives of Disease in Childhood.