Breastfeeding for six months should be law, says supermodel

Supermodel Gisele Bundchen wants mothers to be forced to breastfeed for the first six months of their baby's life.

The Brazilian catwalk star, who lives in the US, risked controversy by saying there should be a law preventing mothers from using formula milk.

The 30-year-old told Harper's Bazaar magazine: "I think breastfeeding really helped (me keep me figure).

"Some people here (in the US) think they don't have to breastfeed, and I think 'Are you going to give chemical food to your child when they are so little?'

"I think there should be a worldwide law, in my opinion, that mothers should breastfeed their babies for six months."

Her comments came after TV star Denise Van Outen said she gave up breastfeeding her daughter Betsy after less than a month because she did not want photographers to take pictures.

"I probably should have persevered a bit longer than three weeks," she said last month. "But I can't be sitting in Starbucks and breastfeeding, because they (photographers) are taking pictures."

Bundchen, the world's highest-paid supermodel, had a natural birth at her home in Boston in December after meditating throughout her eight-hour labour.

Bundchen, who is married to American football star Tom Brady, got up to make pancakes a day after her first child, son Benjamin Rein, was born and was modelling swimwear just six weeks later.

She said meditating every day prepared her for giving birth, telling Harper's Bazaar: "It prepared me mentally and physically. It's called 'labour' not 'holiday' for a reason, and I knew that.

"You want to go into the most intense physical experience of your life unprepared? That doesn't make any sense to me.

"Then I was ready and I thought OK, let's get to work'. I wasn't expecting someone else to get the baby out of me."