Dr. Sharmila Samaranayake writes:

I am a doctor attached to the Health Education Bureau, Ministry of Health. I have been writing articles for the Sunday Times MediScene Magazine for the last 2 ½ years and first of all I am thankful to you for publishing my articles.

On 15th of January my article on “Weaning” was published. In that article I have given a time table for the mothers to help them spacing out their meal times. They have used a graphic of a baby drinking milk off a bottle where I have said “milk”. I meant mainly breast milk by that as in the article I have said until 2 years of age a baby should be breast fed.

As the Ministry of Health is promoting Breast feeding the picture gives a wrong message to the general public as if we are promoting formula milk. Please omit the graphic of that baby drinking off a bottle as we want to promote breast feeding and not formula milk.

Please also correct – In the time table for breakfast it says “Thriposha”. As it is not freely available and mainly used for underweight babies please delete it.

I also want to change the topic to “Complimentary feeding” instead of Weaning. Please be kind enough to make the corrections and re- publish my article in your next magazine.

Editor’s Note:

If the wrong impression is given by the graphic, it is regretted. However we would like to point out that the title of the article sent to us by Dr. Samaranayake was ‘Starting food for your baby in a healthy way…(proper weaning)”. Weaning is defined (in the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary) as “ to gradually stop feeding a baby or young animal with its mother’s milk and start feeding it with solid food”. The graphic was done solely to illustrate the table provided by Dr. Samaranayake which included Thriposha.