The 1999 update of the Cochrane trial is now transmogrified into an article
in the March issue of the Archives of Disease in Childhood (the journal of
the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health):  Is routine growth
monitoring effective?   A systematic review of trials.  Garner, P,
Panpanich, R Logan, S ADC 2000 82 197-201

In addition to the article is a Commentary by Prof DP Davies, who has won
his way into my heart with his words:  "I wonder whether the measurement of
weight...should be an investigation of possible abnormality rather than a
routinely carried out primary clinical measurement as -- for example, the
measurement of haemoglobin where anaemia is clinically suspected?  Perhaps a
lot of good practice does go on where benefit is conferred but, if so, what
a pity it is not published so that doubts can be dispelled.

"Comments over many years from mothers who have derived little satisfaction
from regular weighing, and who have sometimes suffered unneccessary worry
support my anxieties.

"However strong might be the academic arguement against the clinical ritual
of growth monitoring, I will have to conceed (with some reluctance) that
babies will continue to have their weight gain monitored.  (It would take
more than an Act of Parliament to stop it!).........Why should the current
renaissance of interest in the value of clinical effectiveness not apply to
this most commonly used simple proceedure.  But I doubt somehow there will
be much support for such studies.  I wonder whether they would ever pass
ethics committee scrutiny, so fixed are we in our biases.  I will, however,
continue to question the ethics of persisting with a clinical procedure,
which is of unproved benefit, and with a capacity to do harm."

Pretty amazing stuff from a professor -- not only does he focus in on the
quality of the weighing expereince for care-givers, especially mothers, but
he talks about the *ritual* of weighing, which usually only gets described
as such in the more qualitative and ethnographic research.

I am trying to compose a fan letter!

Magda Sachs
Breastfeeding Supporter, BfN, UK

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