Wean Sooner, Experts Now Say

To the outrage of breastfeeding campaigners and probably the utter confusion of most women with small babies, scientists today advocate rewriting the rulebook to drop the current guidance that says mothers should breastfeed exclusively for the first six months of their child’s life. It was 2001 when the World Health Organisation announced that exclusive breastfeeding for six months was best for babies. But today, in the British Medical Journal, doctors from several leading child health institutes say the evidence for the WHO guidance was never there — and that failing to start weaning babies on to solids before six months could be harmful.