Baby images airbrushed by magazines to make them more perfect

Babies' eye colour, skin tone – and even the fat creases on their arms – are altered before the images are put on glossy magazine front covers.

Politicians and industry experts described the practice as "shocking" and said it would put further pressure on parents who wanted their babies to be perfect.

Magazines have been heavily criticised in the past for airbrushing images of women to make them look thinner – a practice which eating disorder campaigners claim can help push impressionable young girls into becoming anorexic and bulimic.

But this is the first time the industry has admitted using the technique to alter images of babies.

Practical Parenting and Pregnancy, a monthly magazine, has said it has retouched photographs of babies to "put them across in the best light".

The practice came to light in a BBC documentary, My Supermodel Baby. In footage of a photo shoot for the magazine, the casting director explained how the photograph of baby model Hadley Corbett, five months, was airbrushed: "We lightened his eyes and his general skin tone, smoothed out any blotches and the creases on his arms," he said. "But we want it to look natural."

Daniella Delaney, the editor of the magazine which sells nearly 40,000 copies, told The Sunday Telegraph that photographs were airbrushed but that it was kept to a minimum.

"We'll remove things and even-up skin tone, that sort of thing. But very little is done, in fact, because obviously babies are beautiful the way they are and that is what we went to get across."

When asked whether lightening eyes, changing skin tone and removing creases of fat from photographs of babies were common practice, she said: "It is a photograph isn't it, so you have to make sure that you are putting the baby across in the best light.

"Babies are not like adults you can't stop them from dribbling, so you might remove that bit of dribble from the chin. Or if the baby has just been crying, and their eyes are red, we might lighten the eyes. Or if they have just woken up because they have had a nap on the way in and we photograph them, we might remove a little bit of sleep. It is just those kind of things, very little really."

When asked specifically about airbrushing out the creases of fat on babies, Ms Delaney said: "I can't really comment but we don't have a hit list of thing we look out for."

She later said that the creases could have been removed to avoid "coverlines" – text on the front of the magazine – being printed on a dark area.

Other companies admitted they altered pictures of babies.

Vanessa Brown, the head booker for Truly Scrumptious, a child modelling agency, said: "When we do our shoot for the website, little blotches or runny noses, you get out. We might also 'debag', to make the eyes look a bit clearer if they are looking tired. But we do very little because the client has to know what the child is like."

Wyndeham Argent, one of Britain's largest printing companies, admitted it retouched pictures used in children's catalogues.

"We retouch the clothing to fit properly. Very occasionally we might alter the flesh tone of a child if they look a bit anaemic," said Tim Moscow, the production director.

Critics expressed shock that baby images were being altered.

Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat MP for East Dunbartonshire, who has campaigned against the use of airbrushing in magazines, said: "People will be appalled that a magazine would not think images of beautiful healthy babies are alright as they are and instead have to conform to some standard. The idea that babies must look more perfect – that they can't have creases in their skin – shows the obsession with a particular ideal. Where does this end?".

Belinda Coleman, of the retouching agency The Shoemakers Elves, said: "It is terrible and shocking if it has got to the stage where babies folds of fat are being got rid of. This sounds like very dangerous territory. You will have parents thinking, my baby isn't attractive enough, how do I make my baby more attractive?"

Other parenting and baby magazines claimed they did not airbrush pictures of babies but would remove "dribble".

Miranda Levy, the editor of Mother and Baby, said: "We would take out a blob of dribble, especially if the baby has a cold, but we would never change the skin tone or 'de-wrinkle'."

Elaine Griffiths, editor of Prima Baby and Pregnancy magazine. "Airbrushing is not something we would do."

Esther Corbett, Hadley's mother, said she was not surprised that her son's photograph was airbrushed: "You kind of know that they do it because if you look at the front cover of magazines, most of the images don't look really real," she said. "But it didn't put me off."