Again, I repeat, the Laurie Nomsson-Rivers did an excellent presentation at the ILCA 
conference in San Diego.  One of the most solid pieces of research I have seen.  She has 
a nice chart that showed the huge variation in infant stools over the course of the first 
seven days.  The color and the number of diapers do not have very high predictive value 
as to intake.  IT IS A VERY ROUGH GUIDE.  Clinically, I cannot tell you how many 
ematiated babies I've seen who were stooling just fine and vice versa (at least in terms 
of intake).  

So, if the purpose of measuring stools in the early days is to get to a better indicator, I'd 
say that the predictive value is going to be even LOWER than for color and number.  If 
the purpose of measuring stools in the early days is to show that it is a lousy indictor --- 
I'd say there is a good chance of demonstrating that it has poor predictive value.  

If on the other hand knowing the weight of stools is to be used for educational purposes -
- great.

If such a study of stool weight is done to evaluate its use as an indicator, I highly 
recommend reviewing Laurie Nomsson-Rivers use of ROC curves.  Anything less would be 
poor science. And just like intake, the stool to stool changes are likely to show a great 
deal of undependability.  

Best, Susan Burger

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