>test weighing may (in the right hands) have a role to play...alongside a
>good >knowledge of bf in all its many aspects, a high level of skill and
>support, and >alongside good 'follow through' ....plus an almost 100 per
>cent reliable set of >scales.

Like others before me, I've come to love my electronic scale - for pre/post
weights and just routine weight checks.  When the baby whose mother had "no
milk" actually managed to transfer .1 oz, the mom and I cheered.  When the
baby who transferred .5 oz at our last meeting now got 2.5 oz, we
applauded.  But a spur-of-the-moment experiment has helped me keep
perspective.

A baby who was getting a routine weight check vomited all over his mother's
shoulder as soon as she took him off the scale.  "Ooh, let's put him back
on," I said, "and we'll see how much spit-up weighs!"  Right back on the
scale he went, same position, same everything, minus the spit-up.  He
weighed .1 oz more than before.

This told me 2 things:  1) just as everyone says, the volume of spit up is
much, much less than it looks, and 2) the scale company is quite correct in
saying that, although it measures in .1 oz increments, it's *truly
accurate* to something more than that.

So did the mom with "no milk" actually give her baby .1 oz?  Maybe, maybe
not.  We cheered anyway, her milk supply grew to 2/3 of her baby's needs,
and she's still nursing at 10 months.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY, whose scale consistently
calibrates just fine despite its occasionally imperfect weighing of wiggly
babies