Test weighings...I've sat on my hands and can't keep quiet any longer.  My
BIG problem with these is that it goes right back to that wanting to put a
meter on the mother's breast.  I'm sensing a major cleavage (pun intended)
here in the LN population.  Those who were trained to "trust the mother and
baby, given proper support" and those who have been trained "to measure and
monitor every last ml of anything".  Can I ask what those who routinely use
test weighing find wrong with wet diaper counts?  I teach ALL new parents
what a really wet diaper feels like by pouring a 1/4 cup (2 ounces) into a
diaper (here in the US, most parents have baking measuring devices in the
English system).  At this point, I go over early signs of dehdration will
ALL parents and any others present.  Then, I have them establish a routine
of taking out a stack of 10 diapers every day and no matter who changes
baby, they take it from there.  Unless they were out most of the day ( and
then I usually give them a big talk about resting and nurturing themselves
and laying low), then they need to take that into account.  My parents, with
the exception of most of the engineers, all prefer this method to charting
every feeding and diaper change.  At the end of the day, if there are only
1-3 diapers left and the changed ones were truly wet, the issue is moot.  If
a baby is putting out 8 or 10 really wet diapers and no supplementation is
being used, then it has got to be coming from somewhere folks.

Now, of course if there are demonstrated weight problems, neurologic or
other physiologic problems, I may test weigh, but for babies under one
month, I do it in the mother's home.  It used to drive me nuts (the one big
clinic here eliminated its lactation program last year) to see m-b dyads
being dragged out of their house to weigh-feed-weigh in the clinic's office
setting, and then they were frequently asked back later that day or the
next.  The paranoia, exhaustion, and general denegrading of mother's self
confidence, was enough to convince me that I would only do this in their
homes.

IMNSHO, routine test weighing of healthy babies does not serve to build
lactation as a normal part of mothering.  Don't get me wrong, I love that
scale for my own reassurance, but I fight the urge to jump to use it.  The
scientist in me has had to really re-learn many things when it comes to
babies' health and mothers' emotional wellbeing.

Respectfully submitted even though I know most of you probably won't agree!

Chris Hafner-Eaton, PhD, MPH, CHES, IBCLC    [log in to unmask]
mom, wife, educator, lactation consultant, researcher, scientist, author,
organic gardener, photographer, lapidary creator, lousy cleaner.

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