Elien asks:


> What is "enough" for
>this child? What is "enough" for a single meal? Some have lots of small
>meals, some have a few big meals, by most of the children the amounts are
>changing from meal to meal. Same with the mother. How will she react on
>test-weighing? I suspect, some will react with hampering MER. I don't know,
>if the amount that I find this time will be equal to the amount the baby
>gets next time - or will be more....., or will be less......To be
>consequent, I would have to weight all the meals of the day (and night) and
>perhaps even the following day.

It is for precisely these reasons that test weighing died out in the UK. I
asked before, and despite robust defences of test weighing, I still don't
have answers, so I'll repeat the questions (sorry to bang on and on!):

But when you do test weights, those of you who do them, what are you
looking for?  Are you comparing the difference you find between before and
after with a specified range of 'normals' or 'acceptables'? And how do you
account for the fact that the weight of milk does not  reflect calorific
value?  And how do you extrapolate the intake from that one feed to the
intake over 24, 48, or whatever hours?

I am still unconvinced that test weighing shows you, or the mother,
anything you cannot tell from all the other markers of happy and unhappy
bf we know about. I am unconvinced that you can use it to work out the
'correct' supplement  - that *has* to be a guess, and why base your guess
on one single feed? You could be *way* out either way.

I am uncomfortable with the idea that a healthy newborn can be test weighed
as a living demonstration to another doubting professional of the effective
transfer of breastmilk. I would also like to think parents can be empowered
to recognise happy and unhappy bf without having the 'professional proof'
of the scales.

A baby who urgently needs more feeding *now* - another defence of test
weighing, as a means of seeing whether time can be bought - shows more
signs than just an inadquate intake at one feed.

All of you who have written about test weighing show you are perfectly
comfortable with, and capable of,  recognising effective and ineffective
bf, and you are using the scales as a backup. My position would be that
therefore the scales are unnecesary, at worst they are misleading, they may
unnecessarily medicalise the encounter with the mother , and I still don't
know what you're looking for : )

I suspect we are talking a cultural difference here, at least partly. Maybe
mothers expect a more medicalised encounter every time (I know some
encounters with sick or weak babies have to be medicalised.....)  and maybe
they don't think they're getting good value unless they do.  They also want
everything measured.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne

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