Ban the bottle

In 1990 the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys examined the pattern of infant feeding throughout the United Kingdom, including, for the first time, Northern Ireland. We sport a shocking statistic that only 36% of babies are ever put to the breast. What is going wrong?

As a paediatrician I like to think that I have considered most of the arguments against breastfeeding and come up with an overwhelming mass of evidence in its favour. As a group, we show an almost religious conviction that breastfeeding is the only answer and are continually perplexed when parents fail to act on such well founded advice.

The outlet for my own evangelism was (and still is) labelled as research. With delight I composed a questionnaire for new mothers to see …