It's official - HV's weight charts are for bottle fed babies and not breastfed ones!

[aloha]

Very interesting article in The Observer today about a new study that finds that breastfed babies are meant to be lighter than bottlefed babies - that the weight charts are all wrong and that actually babies benefit from being lighter than the charts say. Hooray - an end to the tyranny of the HV's scales (yeah, right!).
I hope someone can do a link.
Oh, and I post this as the mother of a chubby toddler so it's not having a go at mothers of chubsters.

[Annner]

Ah ha! There is an email address and web site on my breast from birth chart (or rather, on my daughter's!)

It is \link{http://www.harlowprinting.co.uk}

email address is [email protected]

Hope that this helps!

Annner

[Annner]

Darn! Link didn't work. Never mind, copy and paste rooles!

[Clayhead]

The Times today:



Babies overfed

Many babies are left prone to obesity after being overfed, because recommendations about infant growth are wrong. Research by the World Health Organisation suggests that target weights for children are up to 20 per cent too high because Government growth guidelines are based on babies fed formula milk..

[yoyo]

And the WHO are going to print the charts by the end of the year aren't they?

[yoyo]

Trefusis - It was obviously an awful time for you but as you say your DD is beautiful, healthy, lively (and skinny) and obviously loved to bits by you.

Hopefully breastfeeding mothers whose babies don't pile on the pounds won't be made to feel so guilty and inadequate in the future.

[Amanda3266]

trefusis.

and at your story.
I saw this article this morning too. Now I am confused. The charts in the child health books I am giving out at the moment say they are based upon babies breastfed since birth. Now I am wondering if they will be altered yet again.
Can't wait for the new WHO ones to be ready.

Mandy

[tiktok]

Amanda, the 'breastfed from birth' charts are indeed different from the WHO charts. Personally, I think the breastfed from birth charts are based on poor data - you can check this if you like, and you will see that the sample used is tiny compared with the stahdard charts which are based on several (eight, I think) data sets not of bottle fed babies but of a mix of babies, some of whom will have been breastfed and some of whom will have been mixed fed, and some of whom will have had only formula, some of whom will have had early solids.

They are longitudinal charts, which is a robust way of tracking the growth span of a population, and which is a proven useful way of spotting babies at risk of failure to thrive/faltering growth, especially when used in conjunction with thrive lines.

Charts are used very inappropriately in the UK, by health professionals who are not well-trained in interpreting them (many clinics do not use the thrive lines, for example). They cause huge anxiety in HPs and in mothers. The training in breastfeeding HPs get is also poor - put poor chart training with poor bf training, and you have a disaster for breastfeeding.

Of course there are babies who are not nourished well enough at the breast, and the charts can sometimes alert HPs and mothers to this possibility. When this is the case, there are ways of supporting the breastfeeding and ensuring the baby gets what he needs at the breast - when this is not done, at best babies risk weaning/moving to formula unnecessarily, and at worst, you get poor mothers like trefusis (brave story, trefusis) driven into severe anxiety.

It would be important for your PCT, Amanda, to support your training in the use of the charts and to decide which ones are the most useful. There are many experts who feel the 'breastfed from birth' charts are just not good enough (Royal College of Child Health, for one, has refused to back them).

[aloha]

Trefusis, such a sad story. I really feel for you.

[dinosaur]

Trefusis

[Amanda3266]

Thanks for that tiktok. Will continue to treat the growth charts with the healthy disrespect I usually give them . Agree that thrive lines are a much better guide. I usually tell parents that the charts are only a guide and it's important not to look at them in isolation but to look at the baby and at the parents/family. We are all different and all develop at different rates. I agree that they provoke enormous anxiety and this is a dreadful reflection on the health services.

mandy

[Amanda3266]

Also meant to say that I thoroughly agree that most health professionals are not well trained in using growth charts.

[Amanda3266]

. Just had a depressing 30 mins surfing the net and looking at all the furore surrounding the current growth charts being used - even the so-called up-dated ones. The Child Growth Foundation and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health are not the best of friends - lots of criticism of each other. Sad - as usual us parents are stuck in the middle. What can I say?

[HunkerMunker]

Mandy, I wish you were my HV