Breastfeeding and Wieght Gain HV stressing me out???? Help

[kmcomie]

Hello

I am a First time mum of beautiful baby girl who is now 9 weeks old.

Had difficult pregnancy and nightmare labour and she was admitted to special care for 8 days and was unable to feed her for 6 days (extremely poor digestion) so to be breastfeeding at all i thought was an achievement.

Each week she has gained weight steadily and has gone from 8lb 10 (birth weight) to 10lb 12oz (today). However because she has for two weeks now dropped below the percentile line she was following in her baby health book the HV has raised concerns. I have spoken to Breast feeding counsellor who gave me lots of tips and have kept a diary and dd is eating regulary, is normally very contented and is very active only 1.5 hours sleep today.

Can you please let me know if there is an average weightgain for bf baby as all information seems to be about ff babes. I need to go back prepared with some examples next week as they said if continues to drop below line then i will need to think about feeding her another way which will completly break my heart.

This is really getting me down now and wish they could acknowledge my happy very alert dd

Kerrie

[KES3]

Just wanted to agree with everyone! I also bf and my dd put on a lb in a week when she was 4 weeks! My hv just said I should be pleased she was doing so well and that she wouldn't put on a lb every week so dont worry about it. She was right, the following week she only put on 3oz. Bottom line as long as she isn't dramatically losing weight I wouldnt worry too much.

[samnbabes]

So, what IS a centile then (daft artsy expression?)

[motherinferior]

Ask her very sweetly, at the same time, exactly what a centile is (it's not a percentage), as it is quite gratifying to watch the squirming response, I found.

[edam]

Oh, and if you do bump into her, ask her when was the last time she had any training in breast feeding? Bet she hasn't bothered to update her knowledge.

[edam]

kmc like everyone else I would say IGNORE this daft woman. If your gorgeous dd is happy, alert, feeding well and producing lots of wet/soiled nappies then she's absolutely fine and yoiu are doing really well and should be bloody proud of yourself.

One fact about HVs - a lot of them don't bother to keep up with developments in practice. They moan that they don't get protected time or funding for continuing professional development. What they mean is they can't be a*sed to open a journal occasionally. Mine was great but there are many, many appalling ones out there would don't have a clue.

Also, you don't have to obey them. They are only empowered to offer advice even though they couch it as 'you must follow orders'. They can't make you add formula (and if you did, it would make no bloody difference to weight gain anyway - your dd might hit a growth spurt just at the time when you introduced bottles and appear to be gaining weight faster, but she'd have hit the growth spurt anyway).

If this daft cow is upsetting you, just don't go to baby clinic. You don't have to!

[tiktok]

The problem is not the charts - 'breastfeeding charts' are not very different from standard charts for the first few months, and in fact show the baby growing rather faster in the first weeks.

A 9-week-old baby who looks light on the standard charts might look lighter on the bf charts; the standard charts are not for 'bottle feeding babies' at all - in the UK they are based on a mix of babies, whose feeding is undifferentiated.

Getting different charts will not help - it's the way they are interpreted and the advice given on the base of them which is the problem.

If a breastfed baby looks light on the charts, it may not matter a bit. If it's thought the baby should be gaining more, then the simplest thing is to offer the breast more often - far from rocket science

[bottomburp]

Hi Kerrie,
you should be able to request a breast feeding weigh chart from your HV!The NHS do make them and i think it is up to the area to buy them.we really shouldn't have to download them. I live in one area of M'cr and my mum is a HV in another area. She gave me a breast feeding chart and was amazed when the midwife wouldnt use it and also when each time DD been weighed Hv been amazed at chart.Mum also recommended that i only weigh DD if worried otherwise big waste of time, have only done it twice.

I am loving BFg but finding it hard to get support apart from family.It is almost as if no one wants to upset formula feeders so are very sensitive to them at expense of BFers!I love mumsnet for BF support.I think whichever youchoose is an individual decision and different choices are right for different people.

Kerrie, B.milk is the best possible nutrition for your baby.i definately found it better to have a day at home once a week cos busy days definately reduced milk and also nosy DD doesnt feed so much when meeting friends.Good luck x

[JennT]

Tell her to F off. Only joking. Don't worry. All the HVs I've met have been fine with dds VERY slow weight gain. We started on 25th down to 9th for 5 months and then just adjusted my positioning and 'read' her cues better and we whizzed up to just above the 25th. HV was V impressed, and thought I had introduced food. I felt SO smug when I told her she was still exclusively bf.....Then I got meningitis and we both lost loads of weight...oops

[terratrio2]

hi kmcomie, ur baby will only feed when she is hungry u can't go forcin food on her weather breat or bottle. i have 3 an have succesfully b/fed all, my 3rd is still feedin at 8mth's.they told me the same about givin a bottle but i was havin none of it. freddie my last fed constantly every 2 hours then settled 2 3hourly unti 5mth when i gave him baby rice. r u eatin enough cause if not ur breasts don't make enough fennel tea is good to top up ur breasts and it aids digestion so good 4 u an baby, ask in a herbalist 4 it, it tastes like aniseed, i love it an drank loads. chocolate also tops ur milk up good luck

[PumpkinPi]

Hi Kerrie, I had a similar experience recently whereby my DD gained no weight for about 2 weeks and dropped down the chart. HV advised me to wake DD during the night to feed her - which I didn't! DD started to wake for an extra feed all by herself and now is gaining steadily - just on a new curve. I think they sometimes just settle onto a new growing pattern after the initial spurts. Boobs have all the milk your baby needs - and they'll take it when they need it, so don't worry.

[Mum2FunkyDude]

Mine went just above and just below the centile line, my hv told me its when they suddenly drop to a lower centile line that it indicates a problem. Babies, like us, do not always take the same amount of food everyday. I think if you can see that she is healthy and thriving then you can relax a little.

[Elf1981]

Hi kmcomie

You have had some good answers here.

My DD was 8lbs 13 when born, on the 95%.
She's now 11 months and 19lbs 5, on the 20% line.
The HV's did stress me out saying they were worried etc, but couldn't see how she was happy and healthy and alert etc. I stuck to my guns, glad I did.

She had a review at 10 1/2 months, the HV said she was "perfect".

IMO - HV are making comments based on a very out of date graph, they do not have time to assess how happy and healthy a child is in the short time they see the child for weighing etc. We used to see the HV for about two mins, in a room filled with other babies, so the evaluation on my dd was based purely on weight. When she had the 10 1/5 rewiew, the HV came to the house and was here for about an hour, going through stuff and dd was playing. It was then that she admitted that yes, her weight hasn't "followed her line" but she is "happy very alert".

The new guides in PP that bobsmum posted are interesting as well - I read them this month and if our HV had said anything, I'd have been waving it in front of her nose!

[aitch71]

"happy and alert baby" that says it all.
you know she's fine, you just know it. i got such shitey advice from medical types that i ended off mix-feeding (for a while, then BF-ing went totally tits up). i wish i had ignored them, but it's hard when you are a first-time mum. you've done brilliantly, especially after such a difficult start, you keep it up.

PS i had some medical issues as well, by the way, so i'll only find out if i have another baby how much all these factors came into play, but i do feel in my heart that the threats/worries of the docs gave me a great deal of stress that i could have done without.

[bobsmum]

Current issue of Practical Parenting has a good article on the new WHO breastfed baby charts and a simplified version of them.
Here:

By 8 weeks:
Current chart:
Girls: 4.2-5.7Kg (4.9kg average)
Boys: 4.4-6.2kg (5.3 average)

New WHO Chart:
Girls: 4.2 -6kg (5kg average)
Boys: 4.5 - 6.4kg (5.4kg average)

Worth reading IMO.

[curlew]

.......but the link doesn't work. If anyone wants it, it's Sunday Times April 23rd "Mothers got wrong advice for 40 years"

[curlew]

www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2147863,00.html -

Found the link I was talking about!

[curlew]

All the baby weight charts are based on bottle fed babies - breatfed babies often don't put on weight in the ssame pattern. The WHO published something about this recently - hang on while ~I hunt for the link - sorry can't find it but there was an article in the Sunday Times about it. If your baby is gaining weight,alert, if her eyes are bright, her colour good, her skin nice and taut and elastic and if she is reaching her developmental milestones and peeing and pooing then try not to get hung up on weight. They told me my DS wasn't gaining weight fast enough. If they had said that about my first, I would have done whatever they said. Because he was my second, I solved the problem by stopping going to get him weighed!
Two quick points. Sometimes you can kick start a breast fed baby's weight gain by taking a day when you just stay in bed with the baby and feed and read and listen to music. A lovely thing to do anyway! Another thing to think about is that there are circumstances when ff is equally as good as bf but I can't imagine circumstances when it's better! I really don't understand why HVs say "this baby isn't doing as well as we think it should on breastmilk, so we'll give it formula"!
Well done for establishing bf under such difficult circumstances - keep it up!

[Piffle]

look at the baby and not at the scales.
Thats what a consultant paediatricain told me when our dd was falling madly through the centiles to go off the chart at 0.4 from 50th centile
Alert/happy/content/breastfed regularly
Assuming your daughter is eating and pooing/weeing normally and happy and alert, give the HV a miss for a week.
I found the pressure to formula feed dd horrendous so I took to lying to the HV

[PeachyClairHasBadHair]

Hi

I've had all my three go through something similar, my first went from %lb 5oz to around 4 lb (!), the other two were less dramatic but didn't weigh over 10lb until about 4 months LOL!

From experience, certainly don't go to clinic unlesws you want to- I very rarely went with ds3, it just un nerved me. If it worries you not to keep an eye though you could perhaps fortnighltly of three weekly?

If it does become an issue with your HV I found the followings attement always helped: 'I see what you mean, do you think it warrants sufficient concern for a PAediatric referral?'. with mine the answer was no twice and yes once, but each time I either felt reassured or got things (a milk allergy) moving a damned sight faster than if Is at around worrying.


HTH and congrats on the new baby.

[asur]

I would agree with other advise and just don't get baby weighed... My DS was weighed at birth then twice by midwife at home and never since. HV's like to cause stress so easier to just not see them IMO

[belgo]

I plotted my dd weight on the new growth charts, and went armed to my clinic, proving that her weight gain was within normal. Weight gain is just one factor when assessing the health of a baby, and any decent HV should be able to look at the baby as a whole rather then just a chart, and they should be encouraging of bf and being a new mum, rather then making you worried about nothing.

[tiktok]

Kerrie, it's bad luck to have got such a poor HV.

I have no idea if your baby needs more milk or not, to be honest (though it doesn't sound as if she does). But if there is any need for more, then you have the milk, right there in your breasts

Just tell the HV you are going to feed more often, and why would you give formula (and cope with the hassle of bottles) when the breastmilk you have in you is in virtually unlimited supply?!

[kmcomie]

5 minutes and advise from people who actually like babies and appear to have a brain and use it and i am smiling

I can not thank you enough, i am new to being on here and now i know there is support out there i feel so much better

THANK YOU

[belgo]

www.who.int/nutrition/media_page/en/

you can down load the charts here