Mothers who switched babies from breast milk to bottle Cows milk formula 'were misled'-Life & Style-Health-TimesOnline
Another damning report exposing the pressures on mothers to use cows milk formula rather than optimum nutrition for babies from breast milk.. (reportd in The Times)
Thousands of women are inadvertently overfeeding their babies because ministers and health advisers have delayed the introduction of new WHO child growth charts according to Tam Fry, of the Child Growth Foundation.
“Introducing these charts will shift a quarter of the babies from below the average weight at one year to above the average weight,” Mr Fry said. “It means that many fewer babies will be referred for ‘failure to thrive’ and lots of women will go on breast-feed-ing longer, because they won’t be discouraged.”
Health experts and nutritionists welcomed the charts, which are based on a study of 8,500 breast-fed babies in Brazil, Gha-na, India, Norway, Oman and the US between 1997 and 2003.
The difference between these and the existing charts, which were based on Britain’s experience before 1990 and were weighted towards bottle-fed babies, is striking. Breast-fed babies have a growth spurt in the early weeks and are ahead of the growth chart at 12 weeks. But then they start to put on weight more slowly so that at 52 weeks the average breast-fed baby is about half a kilogram – more than 1lb – lighter than the chart indicates.
Another damning report exposing the pressures on mothers to use cows milk formula rather than optimum nutrition for babies from breast milk.. (reportd in The Times)
Thousands of women are inadvertently overfeeding their babies because ministers and health advisers have delayed the introduction of new WHO child growth charts according to Tam Fry, of the Child Growth Foundation.
“Introducing these charts will shift a quarter of the babies from below the average weight at one year to above the average weight,” Mr Fry said. “It means that many fewer babies will be referred for ‘failure to thrive’ and lots of women will go on breast-feed-ing longer, because they won’t be discouraged.”
Health experts and nutritionists welcomed the charts, which are based on a study of 8,500 breast-fed babies in Brazil, Gha-na, India, Norway, Oman and the US between 1997 and 2003.
The difference between these and the existing charts, which were based on Britain’s experience before 1990 and were weighted towards bottle-fed babies, is striking. Breast-fed babies have a growth spurt in the early weeks and are ahead of the growth chart at 12 weeks. But then they start to put on weight more slowly so that at 52 weeks the average breast-fed baby is about half a kilogram – more than 1lb – lighter than the chart indicates.
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