Doctor just told me how skinny my Baby is and asked me how I'm feeding him, should I complain?

[Donnadon346]

I have just taken my DS who is 10 weeks old for his first set of immunisations, when I walked in the room the first thing the doctor said to me was 'he's very skinny how are you feeding him'
DS was 7lb 4oz born and is now well over 11lb so growing perfectly, I am breastfeeding and he had tongue tie when born so although he lost a little bit of weight to start he soon started putting on once tongue tie was cut.
DS is my fourth child and I am 38 so know he is healthy and am confident that BF is going well however had I been a bit younger or if this was my first child having that said to me by a medical professional would be really upsetting and potentially put someone off breastfeeding!
I am wondering if I should speak to the practice manager, as i know it made me feel really crap having her question his weight and if I am feeding him properly so don't want anyone else to be made to feel like this

If a doctor looked at me and said “you look pale, are you malnourished” before doing any checks or asking appropriate questions before hand then yes I would complain

Seriously??
I wouldn’t!

It's insensitive and when breast feeding should be encouraged, it's careless. OP is right that some mothers might panic that their baby needs topping up with formula or need to be weaned. A complaint would be a bit much though. Would have been good if you could have pointed out how that wording made you feel at the time.

Jellyfish70 he is on the 50th centile and doesn't look at all skinny that's why it was such a weird thing for her to say, of course I could of understood her questioning it if he was very underweight but he's simply not so don't know why she took one look at him and labelled him as skinny.
There are much better ways of finding out if feedings going well than labelling a baby as skinny the minute you set eyes on him which is what I want to get across to the practice manager if I speak to her to save any other mothers being upset or questioning themselves.
I should of bought it up with the dr herself but I was shocked she had said it and preoccupied with soothing my son while he got his jabs

I agree with you OP. I think you have got a hard time on here. I was anxious in those early days too. Weird world of mumsnet that gives a mother a hard time for trying to think of other women. Dr should have asked to see the growth chart before making statements like that.

Perhaps there had been a couple of fat babies in just before your DS OP!

Before anyone jumps on the word fat, it's just as bad as skinny!

my worry is that a first time anxious mum would really worry that they are not feeding their baby properly if they had been told they were skinny by a doctor.

YABU! I know two people, both first time mums, whose babies weren't gaining weight. One was in very similar circumstances to this. Both were referred for further tests and found to have underlying medical conditions which could have been fatal if left untreated.

Conversely, I had a HV with limited knowledge of premature babies who struggled to understand why my prem DS was so small. It took a letter from the paediatrician (who was more than happy with his weight) to stop her bringing it up. But I'm still glad she did because it might have been due to something else.

My first was a chubster ( a stone at four weeks) my second was 50th centile and bloody scrawny in comparison.

They complained he was tiny, I knew he was fine and just had him weighed less. I think there’s too much emphasis on weekly weigh ins.

You need to calm down, has s/he touched a nerve?

if they are obese and it's causing health issues the doctor does have to have that conversation

Obviously that would be the right thing, if the patient were obese. However, if the patient actually had a healthy BMI, it would be totally inappropriate, as were the comments made to the OP.

I’m absolutely with you on this. Careless casual comments like this can cause a lot of damage. There are very few cases of failure to thrive. My daughter put on weight in a textbook manner and was my first but both boys didn’t and I was under a lot of pressure from ignorant midwives about breastfeeding. I would make a complaint if I were you. She might think more carefully before she speaks next time.

What word would you have preferred?!

Thing is, the baby was not there to be weighed, it was there to have its jabs. There was not really an easy way to check the baby's weight without alarming the mother, therefore, as that is not what she was at the surgery for. To not say or do anything if you think a baby may be underweight would be poor practice, surely? It doesn't sound like a huge deal was made of it, anyway, and weight alone is really not something that would concern me as a mother, as it's so easily checked and your mind put at rest. If the doctor had said my baby looked listless or floppy or unusually sallow I would have freaked out, however.

If a doctor looked at me and said “you look pale, are you malnourished” before doing any checks or asking appropriate questions before hand then yes I would complain

Seriously??
I wouldn’t!
I totally agree.
People seem to have little resilience or unable to take any form of comment without wanting someone to complain about.
The doctors comments about the child were direct and relevant and important.

Many doctors may not be known for their emotional warmth and sometines dont sugar coat questions but at least they get to the heart of the matter without going around the houses.
In this s scenario the doctor has made an observation and asked an open question to get the conversation started.

Where is the baby's length on the percentile charts? Maybe his weight is not where it should be for the length of him?

Definitely not - there is nothing to complain about. The doctor was taking an interest in your child. Complete overreaction

I actually agree with you. If the doctor was concerned he should have weighed your baby. You really can't tell from just looking!!

I had something similar and it sent me into a panic as my son had reflux. Based on a random assessment we were told his weight was seriously worrying but we couldn't see an nhs paediatrician for weeks! We ended up paying for a private paediatrician who confirmed it was nonsense.

I’m absolutely with you on this. Careless casual comments like this can cause a lot of damage
Maybe but I dont think there has been a casual careless comment here.
He has noticed a child appearing small and queried. This actually sounds to be in more colloquial language and to me would be less alarming than using medical terminology or being formal.

I think you are being sensitive OP, if you look at it constructively, he was concerned about your baby, there was no malice etc..

Wish a health professional had asked that about my dd when she was being bf. It might have stopped her ending up in SCBU.

Failure to thrive and underweight are not one and the same thing, though. My ds1 was 9th centile at birth. He then grew extremely rapidly in length and less rapidly in weight, although went up the centiles for both, thus ending up on a higher centile for height than weight. He was (and I think still is), technically, slightly underweight. Nobody seemed bothered by it, though, and nobody ever gave me any advice on how to get him to eat more. He's still skinny as a teenager. His father is the same body shape (v tall and slender) and also seems healthy.

YABU. The doctor was doing his job. You simply got offended. He could perhaps have been a bit nicer about it but its perfectly normal for a doctor to enquire about such things if they feel they need to.

Fucking hell, people mainly complain because the doctor doesnt take enough interest, yours does and thats not right either !!

I think it's a very careless comment actually. If the GP was concerned they could have said "When was he last weighed? Is he following his centile on the growth chart?" I'm an HCP too and sometimes we all say things that come out wrong (I shudder to think of what I may have inadvertently said at times), however I would never describe a baby skinny to a parent, at least without actual information. It's a very undermining thing to say to a new mum.

m confused. Is it because of the word skinny in particular
No, it's because the baby wasn't skinny but your GP saying your baby IS skinny , if you're a crap breast feeder like I was, would have been enough to make me assume there was a problem and I should abandon the breastfeeding struggle and just bottle feed ( I was doing both).

*Before anyone jumps on the word fat, it's just as bad as skinny!"

Except that many young people aim for skinny. Nobody aims for fat, do they? So it's never complimentary. Some people really think skinny is a huge compliment!

Not the point of the thread.

Op, tbh, the whole thing sounds weird. Are you sure she was really a gp?

Cup.. in the context of babies, a fat baby is a healthy one and so it’s a compliment. For me it would be. But I have a small one and fat is the dream.