I think it's probably important to see when weight loss *stops*.
This might be more crucial than the actual proportion of weight lost.

It's also interesting to see that in the study below, the bigger the
baby, the bigger the proportion of weight loss. Making a 10 per cent
'rule' may not be appropriate - probably too high for little babies,
and too low for big ones.



http://adc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/fetalneonatal%3b88/6/F472

This is a nice big study - 971 infants. Here's the results:

Results: Median weight loss: formula fed 3.5%, breast fed 6.6%. Upper
centiles for maximum weight loss differ considerably (95th centiles:
breast fed = 11.8%, formula fed = 8.4%; 97.5th centiles: breast fed =
12.8%, formula fed = 9.5%). Median time of maximum weight loss: 2.7
days for breast fed and formula fed. Recovery of birth weight: breast
fed median 8.3 days, 95th centile 18.7 days, 97.5th centile 21.0
days; formula fed median 6.5 days, 95th centile 14.5 days, 97.5th
centile 16.7 days. The time taken to regain birth weight correlates
with both the degree and timing of initial weight loss for all groups.

Shame there seems to be no sorting out of excl and partially bf
babies....all those bf babies will not be excl bf.

On these figures, the bigger the baby, the greater the weight loss,
and the longer the time to regain (bf babies losing more and taking
longer to regain)....but look how quickly the weight loss stops for
both bf and formula fed babies - 2.7 days. I would need to see the
paper to see the range....wish they'd put it in the abstract.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, UK

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