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

A GP that says "they look skinny" is giving an opening for you to explain why

Personally I wouldn’t even think to justify why or give reasons.

As far as I am aware “they look skinny” is a statement not a question.

Saying a dr needs to ask these questions is fine if they were actual questions and not POVs

And if they checked their files/red book then they might not need to make ridiculous statements.

It is rather akin to making a prognosis with out looking at test results

A lot of posters are completely missing the point - the point isn't that my baby is underweight and I was offended that it was picked up - the point of my OP is that a medical professional took one glance at a baby, decided he looked underweight and decided to voice her opinion ( because that's all it was - the medical charts tell me he's a perfectly average weight for his age) without even taking a look in his red book which was in my hand. When you have just had a baby you feel very vulnerable and I think that she should of used more tact or she risks really upsetting someone and undermining a woman's confidence in how she's feeding her baby! Just my opinion though.

OP, I totally understand where you’re coming from. It was insensitive and an unnecessary remark. It is a vulnerable time and and there could have been other more tactful ways that the Dr could have responded to her concerns without upsetting and undermining your confidence. I breastfed my babies and they were quite lean. I think that’s normal for breastfed babies. Keep believing that you’re doing a wonderful job because you probably are. 💐. I don’t usually post but I’m baffled as to some of the responses to your thread.

As I recall the OP did not complain about being "offended", she used the word "upset". The former is (potentially reasoned, given the time lag) indignation, the latter is an unconscious emotional response. The OP didn't even say she was actually upset, but she worried a first time mum in her position might be upset. Some of us, perhaps a little nearer to the time when we had a tiny newborn, have agreed that it could have been upsetting because the term is judgemental and in this situation was not based on any actual facts, particularly birth weight and height. She wasn't talking about creating a big stir, just a note to the practice manager. It really wouldn't hurt a GP to have a second thought about how their words can come across to avoid future upset. My GP practice have feedback forms out all the time and a suggestion box for the practice manager, it's how they get better. I ask my clients for feedback from time to time, that helps me get better.

Of course you shouldn't! The doctor is a doctor... It's literally her job to ask these questions. Imagine if there was a problem and she had seen the baby and not said a word! Maybe the baby does look a little skinny and she just wanted to check all was well? Just doing her job!

YABU. Healthcare professionals can't win! Patients complain if we tell them the're underweight or if they're overweight/obese and we're the first to get the blame if someone didn't realise their weight was abnormal and they're suddenly surprised by their malnutrition, heart condition or diabetes. Someone took an interest in your child's welfare and asked appropriate questions, bloody fantastic! I look after cardiac children and many of them are picked up by issues with weight gain and feeding. Be pleased your child is healthy and you have engaged, competent healthcare staff. GP numbers are at a record low (www.bbc.com/news/health-48191438) so give the poor GP practice manager a break and don't complain, they have bigger fish to fry. Thank you for getting your child vaccinated :)

Im Surprised at how many posters on here are missing the point.

I wonder how many would say that it’s the doctors job to say what they say if they told their perfectly healthy 10yo child, “you look skinny, are you anorexic?” Or “you look
Chubby, how is your diet” Upon entering the door before even putting them on the scales..

It is NOT a doctors job to pass personal opinions for medical ones. Not their job to bypass medical procedure when available and rely on the their gut feeling. Quite the opposite actually. That’s against the profession.

The doctor was just doing her job. You are just being precious. Get over it and stop being so emotional. Must be like walking on egg shells around you. Next you will be saying he was body shaming your baby by commenting on their appearance.

@IABUQueen Don’t you be precious too. Doctor was doing her job FFS, get back in your pram.

Gut feeling is a very important tool in a doctor’s kit. It wasn’t a personal opinion, it was a professional one.

I see where you are coming from. I had a bad experience with a sonographer asking me if I was starving my baby because she was screaming during hip exam. She was 6 days old, I was a first time Mum breastfeeding. I was devastated. Baby was growing fine, HV was v angry with sonographer and phoned PALS.

The doctor is probably used to seeing massive babies and chunky toddlers and isn't used to seeing one that is actually a perfectly normal weight. I wouldn't formally complain, but the turn of phrase was unfortunate.

You sound oversensitive and defensive. You need to chill a little

Yes, complain. Complain about an overstretched service and a GP who was just doing their job.

No wonder people are leaving the public sector in droves.

A friend of a friend ended up underfeeding her third child after successfully breastfeeding two others without any need for supplementation. He was skinny as hell, she just couldn't see it. People "forget" stuff in between kids, and it's easy to kid yourself that your kid lis normal and is just "small featured" or "long-limbed" or "delicately built" or whatever, when in reality the child may be underweight. In the case of the FOAF, it needed a medical professional to point this out to her.

As for how she had ended up underfeeding, it seems to be connected to the fact that she was just super busy and stressed, rushing round with two other kids taking them to all their various classes and lessons and playdates--she wasn't taking enough time for cluster-feeding and giving the baby long enough at the breast. And perhaps a little bit overconfident, because she had done all this before. She ended up doing a little formula just to make sure that everyone's needs were met and her child thrived, filled out and stopped the miserable fussing and crying that he had been doing.

I think the doctor was right to raise concerns--he may have seen one or two similar cases before.

But he/she was wrong to raise concerns about a baby that was a good weight. They should have said "Let's just check her weight," and asked questions about how she is feeding without making any judgemental comment first. It's not wrong to check, but the manner of approaching this was poor.

The number of people on this thread who are assuming the doctor is male, despite the fact OP has been clear it was a woman, is really alarmingly.

I see your point now OP. Are you due to see this GP again, rather than complaining to the practise manager, I think you should book your next appointment with her to discuss her words.
You're right she needs to be aware.
I am sorry I didn't see in between the lines earlier, it is my downfall with professionals my default not to question a professional, unfortunately my DD slipped through the cracks for years, as I didn't argue with the GPs. I saved for an appointment with a OT peadatrician, I was shocked with the results and how bad her muscle was.

Book an appointment to "discuss her words " ?? No wonder we can never get appointments with all the snowflakes discussing nonsense with their doctor . Why don't you go to a private GP where you will have long sessions at high cost and lovely words as opposed to a harassed NHS GP?

Yabu
According to the figures you gave, he was born between the 25th and 50th gentiles, hd is now on the 9th century, so he has dropped almost 1.5 centiles. Depending on what has been going on inbetween this may or may not be okay. Take him to health visitor clinic once a month to see if his weight is consistent over time. I suspect if he had tongue tie/feeding issues at the beginning, the weight loss was then and he may well now be following the 9th centile ever since but you need to weigh him regularly to track this.

I didnt mean book an appointment to specifically discuss her wording. I meant when OP is due her next appointment, book the same GP, so she can mention it directly to the GP.

Sorry OP I think you ABU and oversensitive. I was a very anxious first time mum 2 years ago (very anxious person in general tbh). I was formula feeding and upset at not being able to BF, I remember HV commenting to me that my DS looked ‘skinny’ and asking questions about how I was feeding, how often etc. How can they assess the situation and ensure everything is ok without that info...? he did look skinny too - his weight was ok but he was very long and did look scrawny! Despite my (completely hormonal and unreasonable) feelings of being a failure for not being able to BF, I didn’t take offence and was grateful for input from someone with more experience. It turned out my DS actually had a slight tongue tie that was affecting his feeding which was picked up by the HV on that visit after noticing he looked ‘skinny’.

Congrats on bfing. I think that is what you are after.

I don’t usually comment on am AIBU but I just want to say have you any idea how demoralising it is when patients complain about something that’s not had a serious impact on a patient? If you complain your GP will probably have to write a statement detailing what he/she said this is time consuming and frustrating for someone who’s probably just trying to do a good job who simply misjudged a child’s weight. HCPs are only human they make mistakes they only have a very limited time with each patient if your child was skinny and he hadn't picked it up then that would have been wrong. Secondly if you complain in future he may be less keen to comment as he knows that it could lead to another complaint so a skinny child or an overweight child might be missed. There is a shortage of GPs nurses etc moral is low we are working in a service which the vast majority of us believe in but that has totally collapsed around us everyone is working if at a 120% capacity most of us are exhausted. It is complaints about small things like this like yours that often tips staff over the edge most of us can accept serious complaints and causes resignations. OP your GP thought your child was looking skinny, she looked at your baby and expressed her concern, ok it was unfounded because she clearly is gaining weight but this was her initial impression. As HCP we are allowed to comment on weight (over or under), we are not doing because we’re in a bad mood or dislike a patient it’s because we have a patients best interest at heart. A child failing to thrive may have an serious underlying medical condition, your GPs Few if any GPs are anti breast feeding but they have an obligation to make sure your child is healthy.

I think you’ve been given a really hard time here and I’m not sure why. It’s fine for any HCP to look at a child and think “ooh that baby looks quite skinny”- it is literally their job to identify children who need extra help- but what they shouldn’t immediately do at that point is blurt that thought out. They should take the red book and check to see whether they are actually underweight. If the red book has no weights recorded or shows that they are indeed underweight, then I would expect them to start asking about feeding and how things are going. I would expect to be asked how I was feeding at some point (especially with a 10 week old!) but not with direct reference to their opinion on how fat or thin my child appears to them.

My daughter has always looked skinny- you can see every single rib on her!- but she tracks along the 75th centile and always has done (apart from at birth where she was 50th). She is, however, very very tall (off the chart, always has been) which obviously means she looks skinnier than a child of the same weight but who is considerably shorter than she is. I’d have been really hurt if someone had said at 10 weeks in that she looked skinny and asked how I was feeding. I really struggled in the early days with the whole “not knowing how much she has drunk” thing that comes with bf. Clearly all was absolutely fine, but if someone had posed the question like the doctor had I would have been further concerned that somehow I wasn’t doing everything I could for her despite that absolutely not being the case.