Context, context.....anyone weighing their babies at the Post Office 
or in the greengrocers scale anywhere in the UK, including rural or 
isolated areas, would be regarded as a Very Strange Mother indeed, 
and the only place babies are weighed here is at a well-baby clinic. 
Occasionally, I hear of a baby being weighed at a visit to the GP, 
but this is almost always done with scales the GP has borrowed from 
the baby clinic. If a GP has his or her own scales, they are likely 
to be old (the scales and the GP!) and not routinely accurately 
calibrated (the scales, not the GP....).

The person who weighs the baby is the health visitor here, and all 
babies (virtually) see health visitors at home and/or at the clinic. 
The HV may sometimes have a children's nurse/maternity care assistant 
working with her and doing the weighing, and I don't see this is good 
practice - my opinion only. This is because anything that deviates 
even the tiniest little bit from whatever the norm is supposed to be 
means the mother is then referred to the health visitor, and anxiety 
is caused, even when the HV says all is well.  If the HV is doing the 
weighing, and if she is one who truly understands why she is doing it 
and how to explain to the mother what the results can and can't show, 
then there is no worrisome hiatus between weighing and assessment.

If weighing is a helpful part of an overall assessment (as Susan 
terms it - and I am not going to argue whether it is an assessment or 
an intervention), then it needs to be done *non-casually* - I don't 
mean ceremoniously, or in anything other than a relaxed way,  but 
carefully and with understanding, and by the same person who is doing 
this overall assessment. That to me rules out peer counsellors.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK

-- 
http://www.heatherwelford.co.uk

http://heatherwelford.posterous.com

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