>Dear Laurie, but that is my point.  Wt loss or no gain at 4-5 days,
>certainly at 2 weeks, is a sign that milk transfer is not occuring for
>whatever reason (baby problem, mom problem etc.)

But Pat, if we do not know how significant, or even how accurate,
birthweight is, how do we know as precisely as this (4-5 days)  to worry
about weight loss or gain, or how much weight loss to worry about?

Normal practice here, even among non-bf-friendly HPs, is not to be
concerned about failure to reach birthweight until 2 weeks, and babies are
not really expected to start gaining for a week or so.

But this is all fairly arbitrary as far as I can see. And in any case, we
don't weigh babies very often, so we wouldn't know to be worried about
weight at day 4 or 5!  I have asked before about frequency of weighing on
Lactnet, because I don't know that there are any good studies to inform
practice (apart from the Australian study that said weighing more often
than once a fortnight was pointless).

I think sometimes HPs here are too relaxed about poor weight gain - and
they miss the feeding problems that go with it, too.


Laurie's case is of course extreme - still *well under birthweight* at 5
weeks...yikes. But that is unlikely to be the only indication that
something is wrong.

We need some good studies on lots and lots of  exclusively breastfed
babies, I think!

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

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