Monday, July 20, 2009

Breastfeeding in the news again

Having posted more than once about breastfeeding (here and here) and making the point that the "breast is best" argument is just a little bit of "received wisdom" more than anything else, I was amused to read this in today's Times.
NHS claims about benefits of breastfeeding are false and oversold, as there is little evidence that mother’s milk protects babies against illness or allergies, says a leading experts[sic].

Michael Kramer, a professor of paediatrics who has advised the World Health Organisation and Unicef, said that much of the evidence used to persuade mothers to breastfeed was either wrong or out of date.
I should stress here that I;m not saying that bottle-feeding is better, just that it's good to see some sanity at last that points out that the breastfeeding lobby are just as unscientific in their claims as the bottlefeeding industry.

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