BF advice needed - are some babies born bigger than they are supposed to be?

[CuppaTeaJanice]

DD was born nearly 2 weeks ago. She was 10lb 5oz, which puts her around the 99.6th centile. I have been EBF and all the signs are good - good latch, strong suck, you can hear her gulping like she's downing pints, she'll persevere at each breast for half an hour or more, seems satisfied afterwards, feeds 10-15 times a day, poos, produces lots of wet nappies.

However, her weight has now dropped to 8lb 9oz. Obviously I'm doing everything I can to increase the length and frequency of her feeds, and the nutritional content of them by improving my diet and hydration levels. The midwife doesn't seem overly concerned about the weight loss, although it is now over 10%.

Exactly the same thing happened with my DS, although he was a poor feeder from the start and I ended up mix feeding him. He was born 98th centile, dropped quickly to around 75th, and has carried on on that trajectory ever since. He's now 3.7. To some extent I was the same too - born just under 10lb, and although I don't have my baby weight charts I was always a tall skinny kid, and all my adult life have been size 8 with a pre-pregnancy bmi of 17.

So my question is, are some babies born bigger than their 'natural' size? I don't know what might cause this - water retention? lots of heavy meconium? lots of cake eating in late pregnancy? Am I fighting a losing battle and making myself unnecessarily upset by thinking DD should be gaining weight along the 99.6th centile line, when in fact she's destined to be a smaller baby and child and her weight is just evening itself off at the moment? Maybe there is something in my genetic makeup that makes huge newborns that turn into average sized babies and toddlers?

Any thoughts?

Some babies are - a friend of mine had GD and her baby came out looking like a sumo wrestler Mostly fluid retention which the baby lost and she got lots of hassle about weight.

My DS was born fairly big (75th percentile) while I am fairly small (5') - apparently how "good" your pregnancy was can dictate birthweight, but it isn't necessarily where the baby is destined to be. DS slid down the centiles to the 25th by 4 months and has stayed there ever since.

Is your DD still losing weight? Midwives are usually obsessed with weight so if yours isn't overly concerned that sounds like a good sign! You're doing the right things in feeding as often as possible and offering as many sides as possible during a feed (swap back and forth between sides). Your diet and water intake won't have any effect on the nutritional content of the milk as far as I know, but obviously it is good for you to eat and drink well.

Short answer is yes - it is very common and known as 'catching down' . My DS1 was on the 25th centile (as was I) and went down to 2nd after 2 weeks and has remained there ever since. He is 3 and will probay remain there until puberty.
The size of your newborn has more in common with the mothers health and nutrition during pregnancy and the function of the placenta than genetics.
Oh and Congratulations!

My own experience is that I have big babies, only one of which has turned out to be an above average sized child. The other two, at 6 and 3 are average height and verging on skinny. Both dropped centiles during first year. HV's hassled me about their slow weight gain. I ignored them. They were healthy and thriving - just not destined to be the big children their birthweights would suggest.

HTH

Thanks Rita and Geek, that's really reassuring and has made me feel loads better. I was in tears yesterday thinking that BF was failing again. I have just googled 'catching down' and found the following article, so hopefully her weight will level off soon.

From this site

'What does it mean if my baby crossed centile lines?
Sometimes, there will be a natural moving across the centile lines for weight on the infant growth chart in the first 6 months or so. This is because babies who are destined to be small people, because of their genes, can be big babies. They have to get on their "right" centile line and will do this over the first months.

This is called "Catch Down Growth" but once your baby finds her growth centile, she should follow that line on the infant growth chart. If she keeps crossing centile lines, that is not normal. Usually, "catch down growth" involves starting at a high centile like 90th and then crossing no more than 2 centile lines, say to the 50th on the infant growth chart.

I often have babies referred to me because their weight is falling away from the initial centile on the infant growth chart. If the baby is well and is feeding appropriately, I don't worry too much and just wait and see what happens over the next month. I don't advocate weekly weighing in these cases because it can be misleading and stressful. Particularly if you are breast-feeding your baby, you don't need to be stressed about your baby's weight.'

MW also told me that induction drugs cause babies to retain fluid which ups birthweight too.

Thanks mollschambers - lets hope my HV isn't too weight-obsessed. My midwife has been fab, so I've been lucky so far!!

I didn't have any drugs poster, unless DD got inflated with gas and air!!!

Janice, your dd may be perfectly ok, but I would be concerned about a baby still actively losing weight at 2 weeks.....this is not catch down, and catch down does not mean babies lose weight, they just gain more slowly. It's not clear from your post if this is the case.

So as long as your dd is gaining, and feeding well (and you say she is), then there should be no need to be worried or interventionist.

Most babies born at the far end of the scale do catch down over the first few months, but not by losing weight.

By the way - relax about the quality of your milk. You own diet and hydration levels will make not one jot of difference to this, and anyone who tells you differently is exposing how little they know, IMO :)

Thanks tiktok, she was 10lb 5oz at birth on 1st Nov, 8lb 12oz on 8th Nov, and 8lb 9oz yesterday. The milk came in on 4th Nov. She didn't poo between 5th and 10th Nov, then did several, which could explain the further 3oz loss. She was very wiggly on the scales though, so there may be some degree of inaccuracy.

I just don't understand it - how can a baby who appears to be feeding well and frequently (feeding has been observed by several experienced midwives, a paediatrician and a breastfeeding counsellor) lose this much weight?

What would you suggest I do?

Did she look as if she weighed 10 lbs 5 oz, janice? If not, chances are the scales/weighing was inaccurate.

I expect the usual big-baby checks have been done and all is well.

It's a really, really unusual pattern, but as she appears healthy and well to experienced, knowledgable people, then the most likely explanation is that she is just, er....unusual but fine :)

I think it's worth keeping an eye on, nevertheless - honestly, a close eye, because very, very occasionally, loss of weight/failure to gain weight despite apparent normal feeding does indicate a problem.

Oh - you are translating accurately from metric, aren't you? :)

If you've had an IV for a long time in labour, the baby can be born waterlogged and its weight will be higher than it should be.

You have to look at the overall health of the baby, not just its weight.

Both of mine had been big and have dropped. DS1 dropped slowly over the first 6 months (98th - between 50th and 75th) and is now an average/ on the small side 3 year old. DS2 (6.5mo) dropped a lot of weight quickly (15%) but then steadied and has followed his line ever since (also between the 50th and 75th centile).

I'd recently read the thing about IV fluids too - with DS1 I had IV fluids in labour (not sure how much), and with DS2 I had loads of IV fluid before a CS (to try to stabilise my very low blood pressure - I was swollen up like the michelin man), so I suspect that at least DS2 had an inflated birth weight because of this.

She didn't look like a huge baby tiktok. DS was big and chunky and looked his 10lb 4oz, but DP and I both looked at DD and guessed at about 9 and a half pounds before they weighed her. I'd have thought hospital scales would have to be reasonably accurate though?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'big baby checks'. She had a team of 3 paeds come round and do the usual newborn check - eyes, hips, skull etc., but none of them mentioned her size or any additional checks they wanted to do.

It sounds like several people on this thread have experienced large weight losses too and their DCs have been fine, so I won't worry too much yet. I'll keep an eye on things though - BF group on tues so I can check latch etc (again) and HV on friday for another weigh.

Thankyou.

The big baby checks are seeing if the mum had gestational diabetes - not entirely sure if this is still done as a routine, though, if the mum has no signs.

The people on the thread have had babies who have pretty gradually fallen down the centiles and/or taken a while to reach birthweight, janice....no one has quite the same experience as you.

Hospital scales may be inaccurate, and/or the weighing may be done inaccurately and/or recorded inaccurately - it does happen :)

DD was 10lb 1oz at birth (99th centile) she dropped down to just below the 75th and my silly MW got me offering top ups and all sorts. Since around 6 months she has been the 75th for weight and the 98th for length. She didn't double her body weight until she was nearing one

I know of a couple of people who are fairly sure their babies were inaccurately weighed at birth, one had supposedly lost a pound by the time he was weighed the next day at home .

Try not to worry too much...hope she's put a bit on by Friday

I had the GD test at 28 weeks which came back negative. I also had growth scans at 32 and 36 weeks because of my low BMI, and the 36 week scan put her on the 2nd centile .

None of it makes sense, so I'm not sure what to do next. Do I wait until friday then consider top-ups if she's lost more weight (hoping to avoid this as mix feeding was a pita last time)? Ask the hospital to check their scales (we have a photo of the 10lb 5oz reading so know it wasn't human error)? Express after feeds to try and increase supply? Go to a clinic and get her weighed early this week, in case the mw scales were inaccurate?

Janice, I think the answer to 'what to do?' is just to continue staying in touch with the midwife and then HV and if the weight loss is still apparent on Friday to ask to see a paed to check that all is well.

I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to ask the hospital about their scales - though they might think it's an unusual request :) You could indeed phone the labour ward, and just politely explain your concerns, and that one thing that might help you solve the mystery is to rule out scale error on the labour ward....have they had any recent concerns about the accuracy of their scales?

Thanks tiktok - fingers crossed for friday!!

Tiktok knows that I've had issues with newborns, ebf and weight loss so I feel your pain and confusion. However, I want to back up her point that sometimes weight is recorded inaccurately.

DS1 was weighed at birth. The electric scales were broken so a young trainee mw used the old fashioned scales that look like grocers' scales. DS was not happy at being weighed and wriggled a lot. The needle travelled between 6lb10oz and 7lb5oz. She decided to take 7lb5oz as his weight. We questioned it but not v strongly - a bit tired and emotional!

All was well until he was admitted to paed ward at 2 days old (with suspected strep b infection) and was weighed at 6lb10oz. They nearly went bananas! I still sometimes wish I'd been more forceful as knowing your baby's birth weight matters surprisingly a lot to me!

I hope you get somewhere soon.

Update - I had DD weighed today and she's back up to 9lb, so she's put on 7oz in 3 days!! I'll keep an eye on her weight, but it looks like things are moving in the right direction.

Yay!

@RitaMorgan I know this thread is oooold, but I'm worried about my 8-week-old's weight and he sounds like of similar to your baby.

Did your baby's chart look a bit like this?

I really want to believe it's catch down growth, because both my boyfriend and I are naturally thin people, and also during pregnancy I ate so much and put on 3.5 stone so that might have artifically increased my boy's weight, AND I was induced... but, I also think his latch is pretty bad so maybe he's just not getting the milk he needs.

I'm getting conflicting advice from medical professionals and I'm really lost.