Theresa, your discussion of weight gain was interesting. I was always very
fortunate that I had a doctor who looked at my children wholly & did not
jump to decisions based on growth charts, or artificial timelines. For
example, my 2nd (& 4th, but by then it wasn't an issue as I had been through
it before) did not eat solids until 10 months or so (unless you count beach
sand) & then very minimally. He was not concerned & said that babies could
do fine on just breastmilk til a year or so. I had previously been to a
doctor (I was doctor changing/hunting) who had told me to "force the issue"
with him and got my all worried about anemia. All of my babies were fairly
big at birth, ranging from 8lbs.3 to 9lbs 10. All of them were quite big
chubby babies early on(with the exception of a bad period with #1), but the
two late-eaters slimmed down at around 9 months or so while the two eat
everything children continued to be chunky til 5 and 6 approximately. It is
one of the fascinating things about having several children,observing things
like this, weight patterns, food preferences and so on.
As for babies who are small, don't you find that there are 2 categories: the
babies who are tiny made but still chubby in their own delicate way and the
other babies that you feel concern about, they have an old look to them, the
fat is minimal, their eyes look big and perhaps sunken. These are the babies
that need help whether it be breastfeeding management (hopefully) or
supplementation. These are the babies that cause me to lose sleep.
Sometimes their mothers cannot see it I suspect. My own first was starving
for awhile and my husband and I did not see it. And you see pacifiers going
in instead of the breast, or babies being walked instead of the breast, and
that scares me.
Going no-mail for a week or so.OFf to visit in-laws in Montreal & then
Jo-Anne Elder-Gomez for a few days (so Jo-Anne - save me any interesting
Lactnet posts or links okay - see you soon)
Deborah Sowery-Quinn
canada
Because I wasn't able to attend the LLLI conference, I picked some of the
sessions I would have liked to attend and ordered the tapes. Yesterday I
listened to one on case studies and was very intrigued by some of the
information on weight gain. The LC explained that new studies suggest a baby
should gain at least an ounce a day and should be gaining about 2 pounds a
month.
This has been a particular interest of mine because my daughter (now almost
23) was a slow-gaining baby. She was born weighing 8 pounds, and gained
approximately a pound a month in the early months, slowing down after 6
months or so. She weighed just over 17 pounds at a year. She was exclusively
breastfed, started solids at about 10 months and even at a year ate only
small amounts. As an adult, she is 5'2" tall (same as me) and weighs about
100 pounds (as I did at her age). (And she's just graduated at the top of
her program in university, so there seem to be no intellectual deficits from
lack of food!)
My doctor was completely supportive and told me that a baby's birthweight is
influenced by many factors and does not correlate with weight as an adult.
The child's weight at one year, however, does correlate with height and
weight as an adult. So while my daughter was at the 75% percentile at birth,
and the 20% at one year, the doctor did not see that as a problem.
I have passed this advice/information on to other parents. Recently I was
working with a mother whose baby was born weighing 10 lbs. 4 oz. - top of
the charts! The parents were average sized, a bit bigger than me but
certainly not unusually tall or heavy. The baby gained weight very slowly
but steadily and at 5 months is approaching the middle range of the chart. I
see this as a baby who was "overweight" at birth and is now "growing down"
to his expected size.
My own records as a baby show that I was born weighing 5 lb. 8 oz. and
weighed about 17 pounds at a year! In my daughter's case, she just doubled
her birth weight, in my case I tripled mine. Yet we both ended up about the
same size.
I wondered if anyone has more information on this. Is my information
inaccurate? What should we be telling parents about weight gain in their
babies? When is supplementation necessary?
Teresa Pitman
Guelph, Ontario
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