14 DAY TRIAL // Actress and longtime vegan Alicia Silverstone, who has made quite a reputation for herself with her very own Kind Diet, has come under fire from experts for posting a video on her website in which she's seen mouth-feeding her son Bear Blu.
You can see the video in question below, embedded at the end of the article.
It was posted on Alicia's official webpage over the weekend, together with a few explanatory words. Apparently, she usually feeds Bear this way.
“I fed Bear the mochi and a tiny bit of veggies from the soup… from my mouth to his. It’s his favorite... and mine. He literally crawls across the room to attack my mouth if I’m eating. This video was taken about a month or 2 ago when he was a bit wobbly. Now he is grabbing my mouth to get the food!” the star gushed.
While her fans instantly showed lots of interest in such a practice, with many of them saying they wanted to try it out as well, medical experts are none too pleased with the idea, Fox411 reports.
One of the biggest cons of mouth-feeding your infant child like this on a regular basis is that it's not an entirely hygienic practice.
Whatever bacteria is in the mother's mouth will be transmitted to the child, who becomes more exposed than he would have been had he been fed the traditional way, with a spoon.
“There are those who think that a mom chewing a baby’s food provides helpful enzymes from her mouth but it doesn’t seem like a hygienic practice. Various viruses and bacteria, but especially herpes virus, may be passed from mother to baby,” Dr. Jennifer Landa, M.D, says for the aforementioned media outlet.
“These microbes present a challenge that the infant’s immune system may not be ready for. So the practice is questionable for safety, and then, there’s a certain ick factor here that needs to be considered,” Dr. Landa adds.
A family therapist, Melody Brooke, also believes the practice shouldn't be transformed into a common occurrence because there's something “weird” about it.
At the opposite pole, Heather Lounsbury, founder of LiveNaturalLiveWell, defends Alicia and her choice of feeding her child this way, saying that, once she's made up her mind about this practice, she must surely have already taken all the measures necessary to minimize the risk of an infection.
“I'm sure Alicia is brushing her teeth regularly as to not expose her baby to bacteria in her mouth. It is dangerous to try and live in a completely sterile environment, because it's impossible. And it doesn't allow for the body to fight minor infections so it can fight more serious illnesses it may be exposed to,” Lounsbury says.
Even so, reaction to the video in the blogosphere remains mixed.
