I really am enjoying the interchanges about infant growth. This is when Lactnet is most fun for me because we challenge each other to examine our beliefs and hold them up against research. Sometimes our beliefs are affirmed (for instance, nothing has yet shaken my belief that bfg is best). Other times, such as when we examine these growth data, we must alter our beliefs to fit what seems to be coming clear: The appropriate time for the most rapid growth in babies is EARLY. In the breastfed baby, this first 1-3 or 4 months should be marked by very robust gains. This makes perfect sense. You have a very vulnerable, puny, little neonate whose best shot at survival is to fatten up, get strong, and have lots of energy to put toward brain growth and health. Later, the best shot for survival is prob. to slow down and go for the lean body mass. Breastfeeding will insure this happens, PROVIDING it goes well. A case can be made that since the exclusively bfed baby will "catch-down" (slow growth rate) in the second half of the first year, those early weeks and months may be really important in terms of infants reaching full potential. As Rachel points out, some of the hormonal reseach is intriguing in suggesting that growth stress early-on may alter behavior later. She specifically mentions the preliminary discussions about depression, but how many of us have had a starved stray kitten or pup who never behaves normally about food even once we begin feeding them up? Do we know that this anxious behavior is limited to animals? There is an interesting study about obesity in the new MCN (sort of horrifying because it never once mentions WHAT the babies are eating as a variable). But it talks about low birth weight babies of smokers who then seem to flip-flop into obesity growth patterns as they attempt (or their mothers attempt) to catch them up. So anyway, it is my belief (and I shall have to change it if good science proves me wrong) that an ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure. We have to begin treating newborns with the same respect older patients would demand in terms of being evaluated as individuals. I think that means giving babies the courtesy of careful observation during the first week post partum. You leave the normal ones alone and don't pester their mothers with pointless, intrusive fidgeting. But, you provide PROBLEM feeders or At-RISK dyads with very specifically tailored early intervention to protect breastfeeding. And then you follow these dyads in the community for a while to make sure that the breastfeeding proceeds normally -- i.e. robustly. Barbara Wilson-Clay BSEd, IBCLC Austin Lactation Associates http://www.lactnews.com *********************************************** 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