Jo-Anne,

thanks so much for the info. Your comments about him possibly being a
heavier weight than he was "meant to be" (this is sort of how I interpreted
it) rings very true with me. This mother had her other three children at 36
weeks, 37 weeks and 38 weeks. They were all on the small side. This last
little one was born at 40 weeks and way heavier than the others at 4.1 kg.
Perhaps this is the problem.

The bowel movements have always looked very very normal. Normal colour,
smell, volume and consistency. At 8 weeks he is now pasing bowel movements
every 3-4 days but it was every day in the early weeks.

She has tried expressing and giving in a cup. Strangely though although he
takes the milk fine he will never ever take more than 2 oz. Just not
interested. He feeds for long periods of time, has a short rest then starts
again. I had thought of a possibility that he was not getting enough calorie
high milk but there is no frothiness, greenness or anything else odd about
his bowel movements so that doesn't seem to be the case.

The only thing that has worked to date to increase his weight gain
dramatically was to take to bed for 48 hours and switch nurse & breast
compression for that period of time. This worked but is simply not feasible
for the long term with 3 other children.

This mother is completely committed to breastfeeding and has an excellent
understanding of it (she works with me as a doula and CBE) so it is not lack
of committment or interest that is leading to the problems. She has had a
PKU test to check for that. Will also suggest today that perhaps a thorough
medical for infection or malabsorption issues could be beneficial if nothing
else simply to rule them out.

If she knew that 55 grams a week in weight gain was perfectly ok for some
babies I think she would feel a lot more comfortable. It is the fact that it
is so much lower than the guidelines (LLL for example says 113-240 grams is
normal) that is concerning her.

Anyone else seena  baby gain this slowly that has been normal? Especially
with no other signs of illness.

Nikki Macfarlane
Singapore
www.parentlink.org

----- Original Message -----
From: Jo-Anne and Carlos Elder-Gomes <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 2:54 AM
Subject: slow-gainer : did someone call me?


> A slow-gaining baby can be a baby who was born excessively large, in
> proportion to the "normal" weight he or she will have at one year of
> age, indicative of his or her adult weight. (Rachel, would you call this
> "over-voluptuous baby syndrome" or "disproportionately large baby
> syndrome" ?) That is why the "non-interventionist" method of looking at

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html