Is Breastfeeding ALWAYS Best for Baby AND Mother?
British parents have been overfeeding their babies and fuelling childhood obesity for a generation because of inaccurate growth charts based on bottle-feeding, experts have warned.
Breast-feeding is thought to encourage a slower, healthier growth pattern than bottle-feeding, and the World Health Organisation revised its growth charts to reflect the former method 18 months ago.
However, British health visitors and GPs still use the old-style charts and the Government is only now going to try out the new system, provoking anger from some child health professionals.
Do you think mothers should be instructed to breast-feed their babies? Or is this a strictly personal decision that they should take on their own ? Should the WHO growth charts be introduced immediately or is the Government right to carry out its own trial?
What do you think are the pros and cons of the breast and the bottle? Is breast-feeding always best for mother and baby? If so, when should mothers abandon the breast and switch to the bottle full time? Daily Telegraph