Baby-led weaning: Where are we now?

When baby-led weaning (BLW) first emerged as a concept, in the early 2000s, it was seen as a new and different approach to complementary feeding, a challenge to the accepted way of doing things - which indeed it was. Since then, there has been a gradual reassessment of the perceived wisdom that guides how complementary feeding is approached, with the result that many of the features of BLW are now reflected in mainstream thinking. The publication of the report of the UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition, Feeding in the First Year of Life, which summarises and evaluates the existing evidence base for infant feeding as a benchmark for UK guidelines, provides a useful opportunity to look at how well the baby-led approach fits with current evidence and which aspects of the introduction of solid foods remain to be investigated.