Jeannette Shepherd raises the issue of 'poor'  weight gain and 'poor' milk
supply at three months.

Just how do we know the weight gain is poor? It might be just right for
that baby (and if the bf is going well and the baby is fed unrestrictedly,
it *is* just right for that baby). It is *normal*, anyway,  for weight gain
to slow after the first few weeks/months.

The world still needs some good and helpful weight charts based on lots and
lots of healthy and soley breastfed babies.  I gather some prototype ones
from WHO are somewhere on the Web as I saw them and then failed to bookmark
them : (  ...but they came with a warning that they were just examples of
work in progress and not ready to be used in a clinical situation.

Current weight charts in the UK (may be elsewhere, too) are based on a
mainly bottle fed population, and bottle fed, moreover, at a time when
formula were different (they're always changing, of course). They do not
take into account the changing ethnic mix of the population, either. One
might ask if they are any use at all to bf babies....but that might be
taking things a little far. Maybe.

It's so sad to think that mothers assume they have a problem with their
supply, and then supplement,  further reducing their supply, when they may
not have a problem at all....

Heather Welford Neil

NCT bfc UK