Refusing consent to have baby weighed at birth!?

[StarlightDicKenzie]

Has anyone else done this?

A friend of mine is having her 3rd and she has put in her birth plan that her baby is not to be weighed.

I know her well and understand her reasons. Her 2nd baby was weighed incorrectly and resulted in all manner of problems with threatens of referral to Social Services for refusal to give formula and appointment upon appointment for what was clearly a VERY well baby. They were trying to suggest he was putting on weight too fast on her breastmilk.

The incorrect weighing issue was never resolved as the HCP refused to believe what they were seeing with their own eyes instead of what someone had 'written' in the notes. She says that she knows now that it can do more harm than good and weighing is a poor indicator of health on its own.

Knowing what she went through last time I can see completely why she is making the decision she is but are there any repercussions for her, and has anyone else done this?

I'm not asking to 'help her' btw. She is perfectly capable to fight her own case, but was just wondering what others thought.

Wrong birthweights do sometimes occur, faulty scale, scale not level, human error. I would ask for an extra careful weight on the day, that I could observe (or my partner). Usually the problem with a wrong weight is thinking a baby has lost too much, not gained too much. If the child is well, peeing and pooing plenty every day, fully breastfed why bother with baby clinic if you are an experienced mother?

God, what a horrible experience for her. Can totally see why she's worried this time.

My DH took a photo of DS being weighed, which showed the weight. I had a section, so couldn't see over that far in the theatre, so DH just took a photo to be able to show me. No one had a problem with it - room was also full of people - as they expected DH to want to stay with the baby and thought it was perfectly normal/reasonable for the mum to want to see a picture of the weighing!

A friend then had a problem with an incorrectly written down birth weight with her son and we were happy that we had evidence ourselves (even though we didn't need it!).

Oh and I'm going to just totally avoid all weighing after the initial birth weight/home visit from midwife this time around, as my son had a good birth weight (9lbs 1oz) then classic catch down growth - dropping centiles til he settled just above the 9th. HVs gave me some grief, before a paed (who we saw about an unrelated matter) told me to ignore scales and trust my eyes, ie I had a thriving BF baby who happened to be long and thin rather than short and chunky.

I would ask that DH watch the weigh, and that it be done twice (maybe at birth and again on the ward/before discharge).

I would want to know the birthweight, whatever then came after.

I know that's not what you asked, but it is what I'd do!

I had it in my birth plan that baby was not to be weighed straight away

they didnt and waited about an hour until I was ready for her to be weighed.

I wasnt asking to wait days though

I can see how errors occur as they weigh in kg and then use a chart to change to imperial.
Trouble is, the imperial chart isn't done per oz - its something like every 3oz
So there is always an element of guess work. But the shitty red book is in kg too making it hard to be really sure...

Making yourself stick out like a sore thumb by being weird is a sure way to have health visitors, midwives or social workers buzzing round you like bees and a pot of honey.

Surely she is better to have the baby weighed with her watching, allow the community midwife to weigh the baby and have the primary visit from the health visitor and then keep a low profile.

This reminds me of a lovely Brazilian lady who was in my breastfeeding clinic with DD1... she said she could not understand the British (Anglo-Saxon? European?) obsession with weighing our babies. Apparently in Brazil baby weight is not one of the measures they use to monitor baby health. No idea if it is true, but interesting...

Sorry not really much help!

I hope she does decide to have her baby weighed at birth because it's something my children like to talk about and it's a nice thing no know when you're an adult.

Your poor friend :(

I would probably go the other way and make sure the baby was weighed twice, by different people, on different scales.... but not immediately.

I reckon too it would be better to insist on monitored/repeated weighing or similar at the hospital, rather than none which is likely to cause more fuss and hassle.

One of mine (can't remember which now!) was weighed correctly, but the weight written down wrongly in one place - luckily, the right weight was captured elsewhere in the records, so on comparing the two it was clear which was the right one and which was the mistake.

More serious potentially was when we went into the hospital the first time when having DS - the midwife was taking all the details and somehow managed to write down my blood type as B+ instead of B-! Luckily we already knew that I was RH -ve, and DH happened to notice what she had written and challenge it (and I had written all over my birthplan that I was -ve and would need the anti-D), but if we hadn't known or noticed, that would have been in my hospital notes and could have caused real problems!