Dear all:

I am beginning to suspect that one could do a study on the number of infants who are 
misdiagnosed as failure to thrive --- or vice versa merely by the inability to do the tricky 
math of a base 16 system (that is for pounds and ounces) and for a base 12 system (that 
is for inches and feet).  I am scratching my head over the numbers of a really healthy 
looking six month old that was born premature.  I did my little excel spread sheet and 
printed out the baby's growth in length for age and weight for age because the mother 
reported that the baby needed formula because the weight was in the 3rd percentile. I 
spent a lot of time in the group explaining that the centile doesn't matter it is the growth 
pattern in combination with other developmental milestones that is important.  The 
mother reported that the baby had been tracking along the third centile, but was on the 
75th percentile for length.  So, I'm thinking that when she sends the info to me I will see 
that the weight-for-length may be low, but the growth trajectory in all three indicators 
are quite fine. This baby was not in trouble.  But she needed ammunition to take back to 
the baby's doctor. Lo and behold --- I did the math three times ---- and the baby has 
INCREASED from the 25th percentile of weight for length into the 50th percentile of 
weight for length and is tracking dead on the 50th percentile of length for age.  
Confirming what I saw without the numbers.

I highly recommend that those of you who have to practice "Defensive breastfeeding 
support" --- meaning investigating reasons why formula may be inappropriately advised -
-- that you have a calculator on hand for instances when another practitioner is using the 
growth curves inappropriately.  I would ALWAYS check the math as well as the baby's 
overall health and development.

I swear switching to grams and centimeters would eliminate at least a good chunk of 
mistakes in math.

Susan Burger.

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