NUK recommends stopping BF at 6 months to prevent tooth decay - anyone else find this disturbing??

[theboobmeister]

NUK (yes, that's the teat manufacturer which likes to promote itself as "breastfeeding-friendly") has sponsored a British Dental Health Foundation leaflet on dental health for mother and baby. The leaflet recommends early cessation of breastfeeding (ie at 6 months) to prevent tooth decay!

I've scanned the leaflet, you can see it here ... it's being handed out in primary schools and is apparently also available in dentists surgeries.

Now we all know the stuff about extended BF causing tooth decay is a myth - recent studies have shown there is no link, and exposed the poor quality of earlier research. So it's shocking to see this myth reinstated by an authority, especially when the bigger problem is caused by sweet drinks in babies' bottles.

But what's really appalling is that the British Dental Health Foundation, an independent charity promoting dental health, seems to have been seriously compromised by NUK's sponsorship.

See here - it's the same leaflet on the BDHF's own website, not sponsored by NUK this time, which doesn't recommend early cessation of breastfeeding, is generally more positive towards breastfeeding and less positive towards bottle-feeding. So you get different advice, depending on whether you happened to read the sponsored or the non-sponsored version!

Any else think this is totally out of order?

So has anyone else had the latest response from the BDHF?

I got another reply (quite long) but basically saying that they do not think the 2009 version of the leaflet requires withdrawing, and that it's no longer sponsored by NUK in any case, and that they will in any case be reprinting soon with recommendations reflecting the latest research.

I must admit to being slightly confused because I thought that boobmeister ordered the latest version from their website and it DID have NUK sponsorship still, on the 2009 version?

Also I was checking out their online version here and it seems to have changed and now specifically says that you should continue breastfeeding past 6 months. I can't be sure, because I didn't save the original page boobmeister first linked to - but I can't remember it saying this originally?

Anyway it's all clear as mud but hopefully the new reprint will be better, and I imagine LLL and NCT will be keeping an eye on the new versions of the leaflets.

ah, they have now very kindly sent me a PDF of the current version of the leaflet (Oct 2009) which is essentially the same as the current webpage (which was also updated in Oct 2009) and doesn't contain any sponsorship.

So presumably Boobmeister was sent an older version - I guess there must be various editions knocking about working their way through the system.

The new leaflet (like the website) still raises potential concerns about longterm bfing, but does not recommend weaning at 6 months, in fact it explicitly recommends continuing to feed breastmilk or bm substitutes past 6 months.