Instead, physicians would be doing a greater service by informing parents of the differences in breastfed versus artificially fed babies and educating parents to help avoid problems with breastfeeding. Commercially produced pamphlets were twice as likely to be routinely distributed as pamphlets from nonprofit and governmental agencies and were available in 90 percent of the offices surveyed. Physicians are encouraged to use publications from the government or nonprofit organizations in order to abide by the WHO Code. Further education about the WHO Code is necessary to help pediatricians and obstetricians regard breastfeeding as the norm, rather than the exception. Weight charts used in doctors' offices are based on bottle fed babies and were compiled by formula manufacturers.
Breastfed babies have different growth patterns from infants who are fed synthetic milk.
Breastfed babies tend to gain weight rather rapidly during the first four months, then taper off and become slimmer and leaner than their formula-fed counterparts by the age of eighteen months. The continued use of these weight charts can cause alarm for many mothers who think their babies may not be getting enough milk because they continue to be in a low percentile on the weight charts. Pediatricians who strictly abide by these charts are doing their little patients a disservice. When women entered the workforce in large numbers during World War II, leaving their infants in someone else's care, it became necessary to find alternative ways to feed these infants. Expressing milk was not an option for the many women who were entering a man's world, and wet nurses were no longer a part of our culture.