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."

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"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."