Campaign call to ditch 'breast is best' slogan

The slogan suggests breastfeeding is the preferred – rather than the normal – way to feed babies, they said.

It also reinforces the view that formula is the "standard" way of feeding babies, with breastfeeding being an added bonus, according to the charity The Breastfeeding Network.

Scientific studies suggested that babies who are not breastfed have an increased risk of childhood obesity and gastrointestinal disorders.

In 2008, researchers from the University of Western Sydney said that infants who are not breast-fed are nearly five times more likely to be hospitalised in their first year due to gastrointestinal and respiratory illness.

The researchers said studies had shown that women did not see disadvantages from not breastfeeding.

"Rather, they viewed breastfeeding as like supplementing a 'standard diet' with vitamins."

Lesley Backhouse, of The Breastfeeding Network, wrote to the Department of Health, calling for it to ditch the "breast is best" slogan.

"We've got to knock breastfeeding off this pedestal," she said. "What we should be saying – and are intent on getting across – is that formula feeding is an avoidable health risk to babies."

The Department of Health recommendation that mothers should feed babies breast milk alone for at least six months is based on World Health organisation guidance.

n Yesterday, a group of mothers from the Airedale area fed

their babies at the Cow and Calf rocks in Ilkley to celebrate a change in the law that makes it illegal for anyone to ask a woman not to breastfeed her baby in public.