<<There are also plenty of anecdotal accounts of labour ward scales being
innacurate>>

In our NICU, we have five sets of scales, numbered -- you guessed it -- 1 to
5. When a baby is admitted, we note which scale it was weighed on and then
continue to use that same scale throughout the hospital stay. When I started
working there I questioned having to mess with this (taking the time to hunt
down whatever particular scale you need, wait while someone else is using it)
because a scale should be a scale -- that's the whole point of its being a
scale, right? I was told that it DOES matter, because the scales may be off,
and weighing a baby on a different scale from one day to the next can throw
off the fluid calculations, etc. I had to test this, of course, and sure
enough, the scales differ slightly, even when they've come back from biomed
supposedly calibrated properly.

Jennifer Herrin, RN, IBCLC
Tulsa, OK