I've said it before and will say it again. We don't weigh term babies
between birth and three days later. We don't know what the typical weight
loss is the first two days and we don't want to know, either. It's quite
possible many of them have dropped more than 10% from birthweight in the
first day or two, but we *just don't care*. They do fine anyway.
We follow them by observing, encouraging BF on cue, and hopefully not much
else, though there are many breaks in routine if baby is very drowsy at the
start (the less interested the baby, the more aggressive and less
appropriate the interventions tend to be, unfortunately).
But we don't weigh them until the third day. If they have lost 10% or more
of birthweight, we are supposed to carefully assess the BF situation. If it
looks like everything is going all right and baby just needs half a day to
get it all sorted, fine. If not, we try to remedy the situation. If the
first 3 days have gone well, we don't get big surprises when baby is
weighed.
Last baby I caught was born at home, had birth weight 4360 g (9# 10 oz.).
Assessed at home on day 3, not weighed because urine and stool output
impressive and baby vigorous and content. Weighed again on day 4, 4440 g or
9# 12 oz. This is what I am used to seeing, frequently even in the
hospital. But I still have no trouble living with losses of 10% and more
from birth weight if baby is doing all the right stuff - demanding to be
fed, feeding well, peeing, pooping, and acting satisfied for some observable
period of time (more than 15 seconds!) after feeds.
It's quicker to record a weight than to record all the observations we make
to assess baby's well-being. But weight alone doesn't give you anywhere
near the wealth of information that a comprehensive, skilled observation
does.
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway
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