>Dear friends,
>Riva describes to us a baby who is doing absolutely fine for three 
>weeks after birth (I plotted the weights at the WHO standards chart) 
>and than sudenly overnight seems to be loosing 110grams. We did not 
>read how baby was doing otherwise: was he showing signs of distress? 
>looking skinny? Other signs of disease?
>110grams at this age *can* be perfectly explained by the difference 
>between just having had a meal or not and just having had a big 
>bowel movement or not.
>If baby seems otherwise healthy and happy I wold not tend to panic 
>from a single out-of-line reading. I woud however assess 
>breastfeeding, educate mom on breastfeeding techniques and frequency 
>and have her come in to weight the baby every other day to see what 
>happens.


This was my response, too...a baby who loses a significant amount of 
weight in a short time would be expected to show signs of illness. 
Maybe this baby's reluctance to suck is a sign of this, of course.

I'd add that at least in the UK *scales* and *human error in 
weighing* and *human error in recording the weight* would always be 
considered as a reason for a surprising weight reading. We also have 
the issue of working in imperial and metric at the same time, which 
is a nightmare - translation and transcription errors lead to mothers 
(and HCPs) panicking because the baby appears to have lost weight. I 
know Riva checked the current weight again, but the previous weights 
may have been incorrect.

There is no consistency of weighing, either.  Here, some HCPs still 
weigh babies sometimes naked, sometimes not, and they estimate how 
much to 'allow' for clothing or a nappy :( :( Bad practice, of course.

None of this may apply in this case, I realise.

Even so, a one-off anomalous weight in itself is not diagostic of 
something wrong, is it? Watching and waiting a day or so would be an 
option, along with bf education and observation. Weighing every other 
day is prob enough, I agree.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK
-- 
http://www.heatherwelford.co.uk

http://heatherwelford.posterous.com

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