It has often been stated that if complementary feeds are given during the period when lactation is established they should only be given by spoon (Naish, 1948(Naish, , 1952(Naish, , 1953.Naish wrote:'Once a baby is introduced to the bottle, there is a very great danger that it will either refuse the breast entirely, or work the breast insufficiently, so that the milk supply is inadequately stimulated. This happens because the action required to get milk from the rubber teat is quite different and decidedly easier.. To maintain breast feeding, it is absolutely essential that all complement should be given with a spoon.'
Evans and Mac Keith (1951) wrote:'Extra feeds may be given by spoon or bottle. The former is preferred, as sometimes infants who have had a bottle refuse to take the breast.'It takes much longer to give complementary feeds by spoon, and it was therefore thought worth while to conduct a simple controlled experiment in order to determine whether this method of giving complementary feeds is really necessary.
Method of StudyAt the Jessop Hospital for Women at Sheffield complementary feeds are only given on the instruction of the Paediatric Registrar. When it was thought necessary to give complementary feeds, the random sampling method, with the usual packets of sealed envelopes, was used to determine whether the complementary feeds should be given by spoon or bottle. Only full-term babies were used for the experiment, and none of these were excluded. After discharge from hospital, on approximately the ninth day in most cases, all babies who still needed complementary feeds were given them by bottle. The aim was simply to determine whether the use of a bottle for giving complementary feeds had an adverse effect on the establishment of lactation.The following records were kept on proformas: the weight at birth, the weight on alternate days while in hospital, the type of feeding on discharge and at 1 month (fully breast fed, complementary feeds, artificially fed), the weight at 1 month and the speed of weight gain between the time of discharge and the follow-up visit at 1 month, with reasons for giving complementary feeds, the quantity of complementary feeds given and the days on which they were given, the parity of the mother and the feeding history in previous pregnancies. In all, 100 babies were studied, 50 being given their complementary feeds by spoon and 50 by bottle.
