Hi all The thing that I do not understand about this thread is that one does not just look for the suck/swallow. It is the whole picture that is important. It is the 24 hour output picture, baby behaviour at the breast, after a feed baby health, and what the mother reports as happening. I have never seen a baby who has borderline or low nappy counts and not growing appropriately not need feeding intervention (increasing feeds, supplimentation, domperidone, and perhaps expressing) The baby who is not having adequate nappies, who is sleepy, or tugging at the nipple or wide eyed through out a feed and still looking for more or wide eyed at the end of feed is in need of more milk. Both babies need to be evaluated for reasons for poor milk transfer. Mum also needs to be screened for thyroid, anemia, breast surgery etc. There is also always the possibility for allergy to be part of the picture. Recent posts have only been concentrating on suck/swallow observations. There is more. There is the whole picture. The scale simply confirms what the LC knows and observes - that I have no problem with. I wonder if scales are sometimes substitutes for detailed history and skilled observation? Now that concerns me. I know that in nursing circles when a new monitor comes round, the monitor and it's readings are held in higher esteem than detailed history and skilled observation. I would really hate to see LC's move down the same direction and would fight with every thing within against this. Mothers need to grow in intuition to feed and nurture their babies. They come to us because they know they have a problem or are uncertain of what is normal. They need to read baby signs that things are improving or not improving so that they can manage at home. Just how do they do this if they do not have scales at home? Just airing my concerns and questions. Kind regards Ruth Fiedler Australia *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html