to be gobsmacked by stupid NHS / government meaningless guidelines?

[alice298]

You know how one gets no end of shit if your baby is on the lower end of the weight scale ...? Well, my daughter (3m) is on the 9th centile. She is EBF which I am really chuffed with. Sleeps very well, always happy and calm, rarely cries, meeting milestones etc. STILL I get tsk tsk about her being on 9th centile. Fine, she is my 3rd and I know enough to ignore this sort of thing because I have knowledge and confidence (but if I was first time mother i would be freaked out and panicked). ANYWAY, out of interest I compared the red book chart of the 3m old to my 4 year old daughter. And with the older chart, the weight my 3m old is would be on the 25th centile! Not the 9th! Isn't that absurd? Bloody pen pushers.

God my HV have been not like these at all, I have a 2nd centile for weight and not on the chart for height 1 year old and they are not bothered in the slightest and will see him again at 2 and worry then if needed. Told me to run height past GP who said similar.

I have very rarely taken my 3rd child in to be weighed or checked after seeing first hand the ignorance and destructive advice from staff working under the health visitor. They couldn't read or mark points on the charts correctly. My kids were fine. They still are. Occasionally I phone to ask them if they should do anything about my youngest's 2y9mo check (she's well over 3 now and I first called when she was 2.5). They then get really embarrassed and say they'll and me an appointment. Worse than useless. Ignore, ignore, ignore. (I'm not feeling the gentleness today ).

My babies (both breastfed) were both weighed maybe two or three times at home after I first brought them out of hospital.

They were never really weighed again after that and my health visitor used to always comment that she could tell they were doing just fine (both chubs).

The constant weighing that some mothers and babies are subjected too must be so so stressful and off putting. I really can't see how that helps breastfeeding at all - the pressure alone must be unbearable

Half baby half bollard made me spit me tea out. As someone said further up the thread, I also had a HV who thought 50th centile meant 50 % of babies. Never believed a word she said after that though - all credibility shot.

I was unlucky enough to have a HV who persecuted me because of my first baby's 'failure' to gain enough weight (also on the 9th centile). I put up with it for months: weekly weigh-ins and pressure to 'top up' with formula. Eventually (through the mist of PND) I had the sense to demand a referral to a pediatrician, who reassured me that everything was fine. I never spoke to the HV again. I still loathe her for undermining my breastfeeding, my confidence, and my enjoyment of my baby. It was nearly two decades ago.

I was remonstrated for having a 'huge' baby on the 97th percentile. Never mind that her legs are out of 3month baby grows at 6 weeks. No, she's over weight. Did ask how to put an infant on a diet but it wasn't answered ;)

Innumeracy is common in nursing and midwifery, sadly.

I often have to show students how to work out a percentage or read a graph. I'm no great shakes myself mathematically but I can manage the basics.

I wouldn't have been able to resist explaining exactly what percentiles mean. There was one fab local HV who was trying to explain to a trainee what percentiles were and also how real babies never stick to a perfect line because they are human, so the graph will go up and down around various quartiles.

She opened ds's red book to prove her point, only he was the perfect first baby in some ways as he was born on the 50th %ile for weight and stayed there perfectly for the next 10 weigh-ins. And that one, once plotted!

HVs did make my friend with a tiny baby feel crap, but the paediatrician she was sent to was wonderful, explaining "what we're checking is, is he one of the perfectly normal 1 in 200 babies who happens to be this weight at his age, or is there a medical issue we ought to know about? Well, he looks perky and healthy so probably the former, so really we're just ruling out possible issues with some tests, but no need to worry. As long as his weight is going up not down each month." Kid is wiry and hugely active 7 years later.

NotCitrus that made me laugh, sod's law eh?

An acquaintance is a midwife and she told me about a client whose husband really rubbed her up the wrong way. He was apparently really patronising. He then made some comment about how it was good that the baby was due on a Saturday because he was so busy and important, he wouldn't be able to take time off work. She explained that the baby was unlikely to come on its due date and even if it did, the labour might be long and start much earlier etc etc. He wasn't having any of it. Anyway long story short, labour started on the due date Saturday morning at a respectable hour and the baby was born that afternoon. The husband was all smug, "I told you so!"

Ok, tbfi mainly deal with newborns, but you need to ask yourself.
-is baby waking for feeds
-is she a good colour
-does she handle well (eg not floppy)
-is she passing urine
-is she opening her bowels
-is her fontanelle depressed
-is she satisfied after feeds
-is she gaining weight

If yes to those, your baby is ok*

*obs there are occasions when this is not the case. Always consult hcp etc etc.

Oh, fontanelle should NOT be depressed, obvs.

notcirtus of I were to take glee in patronising an hcp, I'd say "centiles", lest I look like a smug no-nothing. ;)

Mayhew that cracked me up. Lipo through the nipples, I'll remember that one.

I've realised lately with my own son who is constantly weighed and measured due to so many different hospital appointments that the measurements can be extremely different he was apparently 88cm and 3 weeks later he's 85cm he has no way lost 3 cms just sometimes the measurements are off. I think it's the same with different scales when my son came home from the nicu at 3 weeks old, when the nurse came out to weight him he had lost 3 oz lucky the nurse had some sense and said no way the last weigh in was wrong he was being tube fed so he had not lost weight but someone else might have looked at that and worried but she looked at my son and said he's got fat on his hands he has definitely gained, a week later he'd put on nearly a pound so the 1st weigh in was wrong. They should look at the baby as well not just the numbers.