Date published: 2007/08/13
The BBC says:
New child growth charts which reflect the slower weight gain associated with breastfeeding could be soon be adopted in England.
Current UK growth charts are based on predominantly formula-fed babies, which tend to grow more quickly.
The new charts have been drawn up by the World Health Organization.
They have been backed in a report by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
It is hoped that adopting the new standards could stop breastfeeding mothers being worried about their babies apparently failing to put on weight fast enough.
The expert report recommends that the WHO charts are used for babies aged two weeks to 24 months.
Although the charts are based on breastfed babies, they are designed to assess and monitor the growth of all babies.
Most experts agree that breast milk is the best source of nutrition for babies and the Department of Health recommends exclusive breastfeeding up to the age of six months.
The WHO charts aim to show how breastfed babies "should grow" - rather than how most babies do grow.
They are based on a select group of 8,000 babies from six cities around the world, who were entirely breastfed for six months, with continued breastfeeding into their second year, and where none of the families smoked.
Babies who are breastfed gain weight at a slower rate than their formula-fed peers.
Current evidence suggests that such a pattern of growth could potentially reduce the risk of later obesity.
It is estimated that if the new charts are adopted in the UK a quarter of all babies will be redefined as heavier than the norm.
...
Currently, only about 20% of mothers in the UK breastfeed their babies, and many of these also give their babies some formula.
Only the ruling elite could come up with such nonsense. At the stroke of a pen, they will use charts that don't reflect how the vast majority of babies are raised, and so arbitrarily "a quarter of all babies will be redefined as heavier than the norm". You would have thought that in an age when we have computers, they could have two charts, one for formula-fed babies and one for breastfed ones, and if some woman says she breastfeeds her child x% of the time then the appropriate weighted sum is done. But of course that would be common sense, and the ruling elite sorely lacks that. What the real purpose of the exercise seems to be is to stigmatise women who don't breastfeed their babies. No doubt we will soon enough be told that these women are guilty of child abuse.
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