>I sure wish someone would do a carefully controlled study on this.
>What I saw doing home visits after 24 hour discharge, was slight loss at 48
>hours or birth weight.  day 4 was birth weight or gain.  Not at birth
>weight or gain was a big red flag to me.

But where is the research showing that birthweight is anything other than
an arbitrary figure? That's where I would like to see the research
starting.

Off the top of my head, here's things that could affect birthweight:

* whether baby has passed meconium before delivery
* whether baby has been induced
* whether baby has retained/acquired fluid/mucus
* if baby has fed and taken colostrum before being weighed

I expect there are others.

Not to mention errors occuring in the way babies are weighed, and errors in
scales....

If we don't know what birthweight indicates and how reliable it is as an
indicator (apart from in a very broad brush way), can we really  draw any
firm conclusions about *when* a baby  ought to be  'back at birthweight'?

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

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