Want to offer reassurance to all mothers feeling guilt or worry about low weight baby or failure to thrive baby

[Motherof3miracles]

I’ve experienced my share my fair share of mother guilt over the years. It occurs to me that I can share the story of my daughter for anyone who worries about long term effects of either a difficult pregnancy, a low-weight baby, or a baby with failure to thrive.
We adopted our daughter from Ethiopia. She was born to a young teenager from a rural area who died of malaria right after giving birth. She was a very small baby. She did not feed well and had “severe failure to thrive”. When she came home to us at 5 months old, she weighed 9 lbs. and could barely hold her head up. Our pediatrician was concerned. Even writing this, I can’t believe this was our baby girl. She is now 15, 5’7”, a very healthy weight, an athlete, and extremely bright. The problem was most likely lactose intolerance. After putting her on a formula for preemies, she put on weight quickly. She met all developmental milestones. If you worry that something you did or didn’t do during pregnancy had a permanent impact on your child, please remember that this healthy, dynamic, and strong teen came from a tragically compromised pregnancy and a failure to thrive in early infancy.

[PussyMalanga]

Thanks for this! Your DD sounds amazing