Joy asks about weight gain/loss in an infant of a diabetic mom who
weighed over 11 pounds in spite of being 2 weeks early.  My first
question would be "What did the baby weigh at 24 hours of age?"  I
am thinking more and more that that is a better weight on which to
base future gain/loss.  I suspect this baby may have had a lot of
extraneous fluid on board from the fact that mom had IVs.  These
IDDM babies (Insulin Dependent Diabetic Mother or simply IDM for
Infant of a Diabetic Mother) may be set up for greater initial
weight loss.  While 1 pound over birth weight at 8 weeks would still
be less than expected, it may not be as much less than it appears
initially.  Another question is how many wet diapers in the first 24
hours? the second?  We look for at least as many wet as baby's age
in days in the first 4-5 days.  When there are significantly more,
such as 4-5 on day one, one wonders if there is greater than average
fluid being "dumped".  This would, of course, show up as "too much
weight loss".
The other question is did the mom have any post-op complications?
Diabetics have risk for more complications than average.  If she
did, perhaps her milk supply took longer than average to be fully
established.
Simply comparing present weight to birth weight doesn't really give
more than a peek at the full picture.  At a minimum, one should look
at: birth weight, discharge weight, home visit weight (if
applicable), 2 week weight, 1 month weight.  Of course, one would
hope that when a baby isn't following the anticipated growth pattern
that there would be additional weights to help see the overall
trends.  If there is steady growth after the initial loss, baby is
on target with development and healthy in all other respects etc., I
wouldn't be as worried as I would  if these factors were outside the
expected parameters.
Winnie Mading IBCLC

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