Giving water to a newborn baby until four to six months is not good. Isn't it weird? Because water is the most essential part of life. We drink soft drinks, milk, tea, etc., but they are not alternatives to water. Why we don't give water to a newborn baby?
Do you know if we give water to a newborn baby, it can cause for baby's death! Average adult women have 55%-60% water in the body, but a newborn baby has 70%-75% water in the body. It is the main reason we don't give water to a newborn baby until four to six months.
Explanation:
It is directly concerned with the kidney. The primary purpose of the kidney is to filter waste materials for cleaning the blood. Like every organ, the kidney has its capacity. It means there will be more workload on the kidney when more water is in the body. When excess water is in the body, the kidney can't filter and control essential water efficiently. Water can be mixed into the blood because of more water pressure. This inessential/unnecessary water can harm sodium because inessential water decreases the sodium from the cell. The cell absorbs more water to gain sodium, but it swells. It is called hyponatremia. Hyponatremia is mainly found in marathon players because they drink more water. Still, they don't take sodium, and if they continuously drink water and don't take sodium, this extra water can go to the brain, which is called water intoxication, and it can cause brain damage or death. But in an average human, water intoxication can't be affected easily because the kidney efficiently works for it. To gross this efficiency, humans need to drink approximately 15 liters every five to six hours, which usually no one drinks.
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Newborn babies' matter is slightly different because their kidney size is half of the average human kidney size. It means a few extra drinks of water can be harmful to them. Also, their kidney is not as efficient in filtering extra water as a normal human kidney. The kidney is in the developing stage in newborn babies, so a few extra drinks of water can be reached directly in the brain; that is why if we give water to babies, water will directly go to the brain and cause swelling of brain cells (water intoxication) which results into brain damage or death.
This matter is not only limited to giving water to babies, many mothers also give formula milk to babies instead of breast milk. Formula milk requires mixing water, and mistakenly or to save milk, some people mix excessive extra water caused by water intoxication.