Heather recounts the reasons why weighing babies should be done by a qualified person in a health care setting.  Alas, I wish all the health care personnel who in fact do growth monitoring where I live were as knowledgeable as they should be.  The prevailing attitude seems to be that any weight at the 50th percentile or above, is fine.  Sort of like marks on an exam.  If a child has a below median weight, it is a problem, and watch out for the breastfeeding because it is under threat.

That said, I agree that peer counselors should be distinct from health care workers.  Of course I am glad that WIC peer counselors have discovered babies who were at risk, but it really only points up a serious deficiency in the health services when the peer counselors are the ones doing it.   And the mother of the baby in the post Mary sent, had already identified a problem: she suspected that her baby's crying was because she was hungry.  The weighing merely legitimized and quantified the problem so she got an admission ticket to the health services.

And yes, this is very dependent on context.  The ONLY place babies are weighed here is at the well-child centers which 100% of children attend.  Medical practices, even when they have their own labs in house, don't normally have a scale for weighing babies.   They also very rarely prescribe medication where knowing the exact weight of the patient is important.  Of course if a baby is admitted to hospital there will be a scale available but I'm not sure they even record weight as part of the admission data, even when it ought to be!

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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