When I had my eldest, nearly 21 years ago, I was bullied, badgered and told off each week when visiting my local, ‘mothers and babies’ nurse, a woman who believed passionately that I should not have had my daughter. I was too young to understand the needs of a baby apparently. She once said to me, ‘Oh well, the damage is done. We will just have to make sure you don’t kill her’. Mind you, I went back to her each week and only because I wanted to show her she was wrong.

How I wish to talk to her now. I how wish I could send her this article and remind her of the constant arguments we would have. Remind her of how wrong she was and possibly to revert back to being 10 years of age and blow a raspberry in her face while tuning out Nah nah nah nah nahhhhh….

One topic she would reduce me to tears over was breastfeeding. I was a mother who did not like it. I didn’t feel that connection with my baby when I did it and Kat just didn’t take to it too well. This nurse would badger me about it; she placed me on guilt trips because I didn’t like it, because I preferred to put Kat on the bottle. I tried so hard to breast feed though, just wasn’t for this mum and bub. During the limited time I breastfed I was interrogated by this nurse. Are you feeding her properly, how many times a day, why is she underweight, you are doing something wrong, blah, blah, blah….

I would have growth charts shoved under my nose which indicated what weight Kat should be and going by these charts she was underweight. She never looked it though, she was healthy, she smiled, she was a good baby…I thought Kat looked great as did everyone else, except for the nurse. I honestly believed I was doing something wrong and secretly put Kat on a bottle with formula hoping that she would gain weight. She did and I never told the nurse about what I had done. When Kat started to gain weight the nurse became smug, ‘I don’t know what you were doing before but you obviously are not doing it now’

Recently I came across an article written by medical correspondent, Sarah-Kate Templeton for the Britain’s Sunday Times, which states that ‘…breast-feeding mothers have been given potentially harmful advice on infant nutrition for the past 40 years…’ Advice which I had been given and so had many other mothers around the world.

The advice, now revealed as wrong, was that given to breast-feeding mothers who were told their babies were underweight and advised, or pressured to fatten their babies up by feeding extra milk formula or solids. This advice was once given, and is still given by some GP’s and nurses, without consideration as to whether babies are on formula or breast milk.

Health experts now believe this advice has contributed to childhood obesity, diabetes and heart disease in later life. What ever your choice is for feeding your baby if you have been told your baby is underweight asks where and what year their growth chart was created. Make sure that it is not outdated information based on these ‘so called facts’ that are now in question around the globe.

I find it worrying that there are many doctors who are unaware about these findings and in turn are giving mothers wrong advice. Advice that may not affect a child today or in the very near future but will later on in their life…