Kellie, you asked about infant weights at the pediatrician's office and use of diapers. If a baby has "poor weight gain" it's important to know how many ounces shy of normal gain the baby is, based on the norm of 4-8 oz/week in the first several months. That the baby stooled would impact weight by perhaps 1-3 oz depending on the amount of stool (I've seen this when weighing during home visits). One weight that shows inadequate gain, should be followed up with another weight check in several days, with investigation of infant's feeding pattern over 24 hr; how long are feeds, how often, amount of swallowing, use of both breasts or one, etc. If it's in the early weeks, assessment of mom's milk supply, are her breasts full feeling before a feed and softer following, and so on, should also be done at time of visit. If there is concern about infant feeding and or mom's supply, a timely referral to a lactation specialist who has time to observe a feed, do feeding weight as indicated, and provide intervention to improve weight gain should be done. Not the unfortunate knee jerk reaction of starting infant on formula supplementation.You also didn't mention how old this infant is which would impact the seriousness of weight gain; a young infant of several weeks could be of more concern than a six month old whose weight gain has slowed down. All this said, infants should be weighed naked or in a dry diaper with diaper weight subtracted; the same scale should be used for subsequent visits. I've gone into so much detail because often newborns are just limping by with marginal gains due to a breastfeeding problem and when that problem is not addressed right away it becomes a bigger problem in a couple more weeks, and suddenly baby's not gaining at all or losing weight and mom's supply is low. So rather than quibble about stool or no stool, looking at the whole picture of baby and mother is important and could prevent a downhill course. As for your question about feeding weights, a baby is weighed prior to feeding in whatever clothing or diaper he has on, and a post feed weight is taken immediately after feed in the exact same clothing and diaper, whether stooling occured or not. So you are right about removing a soiled diaper for a feeding weight, it most certainly affects the outcome. "I have a question about weighing infants. There was a mother at a recent LLL meeting whose infant had "poor weight gain." She was weighed at the pediatrician's office. The test weight was without a diaper, and the infant had a huge bowel movement just before removing the diaper. Had the infant waited to have a bm after the weight check, he would have been heavier, right? In a newborn, I would think that the difference would be significant, as their body weight is so small in the first place. This puzzles me. I know that diapers weigh different amounts, but would it not be more accurate to allow the baby to wear the same kind of diaper for each weight check? The weight of said diaper (dry) could be subtracted from the infant's body weight at each weight check. Of course, the infant should not be wearing the diaper for hours before the weight check to "pad" the weight. If one is doing a test weight to check for milk transfer and the baby poops while nursing, I would think that removing thediaper and its contents would skew the results." *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html