The necessity of warming babies' bottles was called into question at a conference in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland yesterday by a UK doctor, who said the practice ended up in large numbers of babies being badly burned every year.
Dr Nadir Ali, a plastic surgeon at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, said jugs of hot water were implicated in 130 severe burns cases a year in the UK in children under five.
In his hospital alone, 16 babies whose average age was 13 months were treated for such injuries between June 2000 and June 2003, he said.
Many involved jugs of hot water and one involved a bottle that exploded after being taken out of a microwave.
He said awareness of the dangers associated with warming bottles in jugs and microwaves needed to be increased. Public health nurses and GPs had a role to play, he said.
"Scientifically there is evidence you do not need to warm babies' bottles at all," he said.
"There are two schools of thought: one says there is no benefit at all from warming the milk and the other says it is of benefit to gastric emptying," he added.
However, Mr Ali it was part of our culture to warm babies' bottles and people would probably continue to do so. He recommended using a bottle warmer when doing so.