<<Dr. Johnson recommends 4 to 6 months of exclusive
breastfeeding and then
> mothers can shift over to complementary foods as well as
breast milk.
> Continue breastfeeding as long as it's comfortable for
mother and child, he
> says. Usually, that's about a year old.>>

I'm telling you, I smell a rat here. I have ever since I interviewed
all the AAP guys earlier in the month and they all said "four to six
months" to me. They are trying to quietly shift the language back to
"four to six months" from the "six months" language. The
Nestle- sponsored and branded pediatric nutrition handbook that the
AAP's nutrition section sent out all over the country this fall says
"four to six months," and of course, this language was a HUGE issue
when WHO was writing up its latest breastfeeding guidelines. WHO docs
wanted "six months" and the baby food industry wanted "four to six
months."

Without any context, this may sound like extreme nitpicking or
splitting hairs on the part of breastfeeding supporters, but it really
is not. A woman who ends her breastfeeding relationship at five months
rather than seven months represents a significant sale of product for
infant formula companies.

Because these companies cannot come right out and say they want to
discourage breastfeeding, they try to exert influence around the edges
of the issue with stuff like this. I suspect that this language will be
a major battleground within major U.S. medical organizations in the
next few years.

Katie



=====
~Katie Allison Granju~My Home on the Web:  http://www.locoparentis.blogspot.com/ ~

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