The heaviest breastfed baby I know of was 50 lb at a year.  I saw only her arm over her dad's shoulder, from the far side of a crowded room at a League conference, and thought immediately, "There's something wrong with that baby."  The parents, too, had been really concerned, and had been from physician to physician, with all tests coming back normal.  They finally landed with a well-known pediatrician who reviewed the tests and the baby and told them, "You have a healthy breastfed baby.  Enjoy her."  I understand that she slimmed down through her preschool years, and that her younger sister followed a similar pattern.  

And I just read an article in The New Yorker (Nov 19, 2007) by Stephen S Hall, titled "Small and Thin", about fetal programming.  I'd already heard about how being an underfed fetus sets us up for obesity and its related health problems in later life.  But this article talks also about the 1st 2 years post-birth:  "'The two messages for parents are: the nutrition and growth of your baby in the fist two years after it's born is important, and broadly, the more it grows, the better.  Growth is good.  But *after* two, the rules change, and it's better if babies stay in their tracks' - for a small child to stay small - 'rather than starting to go up through the centiles.'"

Nothing in the article about breastfeeding, but I do know that much - probably not all and possibly not even half, but much - of the work on fetal programming comes from cultures where breastfeeding was at that point probably still the cultural norm.  We sure need to know more about fetal programming and its implications for helping low birthweight babies grow.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY  USA
www.normalfed.com, which does have all the old pages, if you poke around. Still working on it.
(www.wiessinger.baka.com is gone for good)



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