Can babies have salmon?

The verdict

Yes, and it is one of the better choices. Salmon is soft when cooked, low in mercury, rich in long-chain omega-3, and named specifically in guidance on both sides of the Atlantic.

HealthLink BC tells parents to choose fish lower in mercury and puts salmon first in its list. It also names salmon among the well-cooked, finely minced or shredded fish suitable as an iron-rich first food. The NHS lists salmon among oily fish and says a healthy diet should include at least one portion of oily fish a week, naming mackerel, salmon and sardines when it gives advice for young children.

Pin bones, which is the real work

Salmon fillets sold as boneless routinely still contain pin bones: a row of fine, flexible bones running along the thickest part of the fillet, angled into the flesh. They are hair-thin and easy to miss, and they are the single most important thing to deal with before serving salmon to a baby.

Every authority that mentions fish for babies mentions bones. The NHS lists fish in the protein group with the qualifier no bones, and its instruction for serving is to remove all bones from meat or fish. New Zealand's Ministry of Health classes food with bones as a high-risk choking food and says for children of all ages, remove all bones. HealthLink BC names fish bones among the common causes of choking in children and instructs that bones be removed from fish before serving. The Canadian Paediatric Society's list of things not to feed a baby ends with fish with bones.

The reliable method is to run a fingertip along the fillet against the grain before cooking, which makes the bone tips stand proud, and pull each one with tweezers in the direction it points. Then, after cooking, flake the fish apart with your fingers rather than a fork and feel every piece before it goes on the plate.

Tinned salmon contains soft, edible bones. The NHS notes these are a calcium and phosphorus source for adults. For a baby, mash them thoroughly through the flesh so nothing stays whole.

How to serve it

Cooked salmon is soft and flakes readily, so it needs less shaping than meat. The NHS advice for fish is to cut it into strips as thinly as possible and to remove any skin and fat to make it easier to swallow.

Early on, flaked salmon folded through mashed potato, sweet potato or a vegetable puree is the easiest form and adds fat and flavour without salt. Once a baby is handling finger foods, a finger-width strip of cooked salmon works well; the HSE describes finger food as cut into pieces a baby can hold in a fist with a bit sticking out, roughly the size of your own finger, and reminds parents to check for bones.

Cook salmon through. Undercooked or raw fish is not appropriate for a baby, and raw salmon in sushi or sashimi is out at this age. The NHS's food hygiene advice for children is to cook all food thoroughly and cool it until lukewarm before giving it to a child.

Smoked salmon is a different question

Smoked salmon is not raw, but cold-smoked salmon is not cooked either, and it is cured with a large amount of salt. Both facts matter for a baby.

The salt limits at this age are tight. The NHS states that children under 1 year old should have less than 1g of salt a day, and no more than 2g a day between 1 and 3, because babies' kidneys are not fully developed and cannot process it. A small serving of smoked salmon can account for a substantial share of a day's allowance on its own. The HSE takes the same line from the other direction, listing smoked meats among the salty foods to avoid during weaning.

Cold-smoked salmon is also a ready-to-eat food that has not been heated, which places it in the same broad category as the other chilled ready-to-eat products that infant feeding guidance treats cautiously. Hot-smoked salmon has been cooked, so the cooking objection falls away, but the salt objection does not.

The straightforward position is that fresh or frozen salmon, cooked at home without salt, is the version for a baby. Smoked salmon can wait.

How often

UK advice for young children is at least one portion of oily fish such as mackerel, salmon and sardines a week. Because oily fish can contain low levels of pollutants that build up in the body, the NHS sets a ceiling of no more than four portions of oily fish a week for boys and no more than two for girls, and is careful to add that parents should not stop giving oily fish, because the health benefits are greater than the risks as long as the recommended amounts are not exceeded.

Australia frames it by portion size rather than by species: FSANZ sets one portion for children up to 6 years at 75 grams, and salmon is not in any of its restricted categories. Canada names salmon as a lower-mercury choice without setting a number.

For a baby, portions are small in any case, and a serving of salmon once or twice a week sits comfortably inside every one of those frameworks.

Salmon as an allergen

Fish is one of the common allergens, named by the NHS, ASCIA, the AAP and HealthLink BC, and none of them wants it delayed. The NHS says allergen foods can be introduced from around 6 months as part of a baby's diet just like any other foods, and that once introduced and tolerated they should become part of the usual diet to minimise the risk of allergy. ASCIA's rule is at least once a week in age appropriate servings.

Offer salmon on its own the first time rather than alongside two other new foods. Fish allergy and shellfish allergy are separate; tolerating salmon says nothing about prawns.

Where guidance differs

Hardly at all on salmon itself. It is permitted from around 6 months in the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and Canadian guidance actively recommends it as a lower-mercury option.

The only structural difference is how frequency is expressed: UK portions per week with a sex-split ceiling on oily fish, Australian portions by weight for under-6s, Canadian species names without numbers. On smoked salmon there is no explicit international rule for babies, but the salt limits that do exist make it an easy call.