breastfeeding item on Radio 2 now

[rascal1979]

There is a breastfeeding item on radio 2 if anyone wants to have a listen

[rascal1979]

Talking about HV's comments on bfed babies and the centile charts etc

[dinny]

yes, listening - they are changing the centile charts, I think...

[YummyMam]

The problem seems to be that some HVs think that 'average' means that all babies should be aiming to weigh that amount, rather than the charts being wrong for breastfed babies

[tiktok]

The problem is not the charts....it's the way they are used an interpreted.

Many HVs don't have a clue, and changing charts without training will just give them more things not to have a clue about

[rascal1979]

My HV is great he has given me the Breastfed baby chart anfd my babies Paed has tole me NOT to listen to anyone trying to get her up to the 50th Centile etc (being prem she is currently below the 0.4th!) So I'm not feeling the pressure but sure that many are/will do.

I had a real struggle getting some of the other Dr's and nurses on scbu to admit that the charts are based on bottle fed babies and that this makes a difference

[dinny]

Tiktok, did you hear the Infant Growth man saying young babies are being fed mushed up takeaway meals - do you really think that happens???

[shrinkingsagpuss]

Surely the problem is less about small babies than ones who suddenly drop down several centiles from their established level? My DD was huge at birth, and has dropped down, but the HV very sensibly agreed that as she was huge, it didn't matter to lose a bit - she's still on 90th c!!!!!

This could turn in to a HV bashing session - even if the so called "new" charts are intorduced - there will always be very healthy big babies who top the charts, and who, by toddlerhood are NO obese, and very tiny babies who are prefectly healthy and just SMALL. Equally - there will also be babies who do not thrive on breast, bottle or otherwise, and there will be babies who are big and remain big. The HV's can't win really, except to listen to what they are being told about the sleeping and eating habits of the baby and then make a comment.

[Piffle]

oh gosh I might be on shrtly

[mrsruffallo]

Absolutely agree. I went through such worry with my first child because she was bf and on the lowest centile. At about a year old she had to go through blood tests and hospital visits. I knew deep down that she was fine and have largely avoided hv for dc2 as I just trusted my judgement

[NoBiggy]

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect an HV to know what a "centile" is, when they're basing their advice on the centile number they're reading off a chart day after day.

[dinny]

oooh, Piffle, what's your name?

[NoBiggy]

And can I just say that once again, having heard those calls on the radio just now, I am so glad I have the HVs I do. They may not be up-to-the minute with all the latest research but they do at least have a good grasp of the basics and the confidence to consider an alternative position to their own without seeing it as an attack.

[tiktok]

But the charts are not not not based on formula fed babies!

Please don;t try to get people to 'admit' to this, 'cos it isn;t true!

Many of the thousands of babies whose data was collected for the data sets used in UK90 (the charts used almost everywhere in the UK) will have been formula fed, and many of them will have been mixed fed and many will have had early solids and many of them will have been breastfed - we don't know because their feeding is not differentiated.

The 'breastfed charts' will show slow-growing babies as even lighter so they are not an answer to the 'help, they say my baby's underweight!' plea...breastfed babies tend to grow faster at first.

The problem is the way charts are focussed on as the only way of assessing health.

I wish I didn't have to keep saying this

[tiktok]

dinny, tuned in too late for that.

I have no idea if it is true or not....I suppose it must happen somewhere as there is no accounting for human behaviour, but I doubt it is common, honestly.

[Iklboo]

I personally know a woman who liquidised sausage chips & gravy from the chippy for her baby DD

[dinny]

true, Tiktok,

just wondering - my ds was breastfed for 2.5 years and was always 91-98th centile. what will the new chart make him? hugely obese?

[StealthPolarBear]

tiktok, I could only just hear this but thought I heard someone say that the charts were based on all babies, without differentiating feeding methods? They did go on to say that that would mean that bf babies would seem small to begin with though. So half wrong

[tiktok]

Stealth, I heard a couple of people talking about the charts as if they were based on ff babies, but did not hear the whole item.

It's later that bf babies seem smaller - by the time they are a year, the graph looks quite different.

Dinny - anyone who judged a kid 'obese' just on his/her weight alone is mistaken. In any case, WHO charts don't go into toddlerhood, so no way of knowing how they would differ from current UK records.

[StealthPolarBear]

yes i heard that about bf babies starting off smaller on the charts- you know you've been on MN too long when you think "tiktok doesn't say that"!

[Caz10]

i am just "listening again" on the bbc website - for anyone who wants to do that, the bf piece starts at about 1hr 10 mins into the prog so you can "fast forward"!

[Caz10]

goodness i think i must have called in without knowing it! the 1st caller sounds like me!

[Caz10]

piffle were you on?

[Piffle]

no I had to feed ds2 when they called back and we ran out of time. Ironic huh!