To be a bit cross with mw/hv

[lurcherlover]

Dd is 12 days old and ebf. She is dc2 and I fed dc1 for 16 months, so I'm not a complete bf novice. Dd was 3390g at birth and lost 4% of birthweight by day 5 - so that's all good. She was weighed again yesterday and was 3370g - so 20g below birthweight at 10 days. Given that it says in the red book that babies are expected to be back at birthweight by two weeks, I thought this was pretty good. Should add that I have no concerns about how she is feeding - 8-12 times a day, at least 6 yellow seedy bowel movements a day, loads of wees, happy and content between feeds, can hear her swallowing, good latch, good let-down etc. She will easily have gained/exceeded birthweight by day 14 if she only had 20g to go at day 11, I would have thought. But mw did a cats-bum face yesterday and said she would have ideally liked her to have been back at birthweight then, and today at the routine visit the hv has written "slow to regain birthweight" in dd's red book. AIBU to be a bit cross? I know dd is feeding well. I'm sure she will be at her birthweight at 14 days, which is what it says is fine in their guidelines. I'm confident with my bf, but this kind of approach could make a less-confident mum worry about her feeding and start unfounded concerns about "not enough milk".

If you're confident, and happy to follow your gut, then I'd just try to let it wash over you and not worry.

20g is a tiny amount for her to be cats-bum about.

Congrats on your lovely newborn

YANBU, I think you're right that this could put off a less experienced mum. I wonder if this is the hand-over day from MW -> HV and she's using that as a goal rather than the reasonable 14d. Try and ignore them if you're happy with how things are going and DD's weight continues to go up more or less following one of the centiles. Every baby's different.

If you're happy that your baby is thriving then, as you're not a novice, I would listen to your own good sense.

I would also write in your Red Book "Not slow to gain birth weight at all".

You are allowed to make your own notes!

I made the error of honesty with my first baby, and had a pretty awful HV. Her notes went from "suspected PND" to which I added "Not suspected at all, I was just feeling down as my MIL has just died - perfectly normal".

Her notes also read "Difficulty feeding and latching on" to which I added "only when holding baby as directed by HV, feeding fine in all other positions" - I also attached evidence in the form of my BF diary which showed text book demand feeds.

Fortunately "shiteHV" retired and her replacement was wonderful.

20g is only a wee and a poo away from birthweight surely? I would be cross about that too. This is the sort of thing that makes women doubt their ability to breast feed, then they introduce unnecessary top ups with formula and that prevents them getting a good milk supply. HVs need better education if BF continuation rates are to improve.

YANBU it's attitudes like this from health professionals that contribute to our low BFing rates.

I was often tempted to write in mine, DD2 is happy and healthy and doesn't care about your graph.

YANBU. 20g is so low as to probably be within the measurement error of most baby weighing scales! I gave up breastfeeding ds2 at 3 weeks after a total loss of confidence (despite bf ds1 for almost a year) because of a very similar incident. I was feeling hormonal and anxious and latched onto the mw being 'slightly concerned' that ds2 hadn't quite regained his birth weight at 10 days and it all went downhill from there

Mrsmini I thought that about the scales - also yesterday she put the scales on the carpet to weigh dd rather than on the table, which I thought probably wasn't best practice either...glad it's not just me who would be miffed at this!

20 g could be the weight of a poo! It's utterly negligible.

Silly, and It's good job you are not a novice.

Yanbu it is a fuss about nothing and you are right that it encourages people to think that they don't have enough milk. Well done on great feeding. It sounds like you are doing and excellent job.

20g is 0.5% of birth weight....nowhere near any threshold of any concern at all...not even a little bit, slightly, whatsoever.

Ha! My DC3 was 25g over her birth weight at 12 days old and the community mw still made a catsbum face and refused to discharge me to HV team because she "wanted to see her put on more weight". She also gave me duff unsolicited bf advice (which I ignored) and got all twitchy over a "rash" (normal baby acne) (I ignored her, but the FTM who was in before me had clearly had the same tooth-sucking over her baby's "rash" because I overheard her in the waiting room worriedly making an emergency appointment with her GP).

I'd had nothing but good experiences with the community mws with DC1 and DC2 so I was shocked. If I'd been a first timer my confidence in bf would have been massively undermined and I'd likely have turned to formula top-ups.

Yanbu. For goodness sake, if a mw can't support a confident mother whose baby is clearly bf well what hope is there for those who are struggling!

Ds is only 5mo and I've already taken a red pen to his book - misspelled name (ea instead of ae ffs!), saying i was mixed feeding when he'd had formula once (was back at my pt evening job and hadn't had a chance to express what with dp having a stroke when ds was 5 weeks)

HV is optional. Opt out. I would, but I'm still hoping they might come up trumps with some support although I've been waiting for that phone call for 15 weeks