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

[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

[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

[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!

[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.

[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.

[samnbabes]

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

[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.