DS born 2nd centile - experiences with a tiny baby?

[Pinkstuffs]

DS was born at the weekend full term 39 weeks weighing only 5lb 13oz, putting him on the 2nd centile. This was only picked up at growth scans a couple of weeks ago and I honestly thought the measurements were going to be off!

Has anyone got experience of this and has their DC caught up of remained small? Did it cause problems in future pregnancies or for your DC?

Is he small because of IUGR (growth restriction in the womb) or genetics? My dd was 5lb9, 0.9 centile. She is 21 now, 5ft0, fit and healthy. MiL and SiL are the same height. My sons are also short. Small isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Also, congratulations!

My DD was 15lbs 14oz at 39 weeks. No issues whatsoever, she caught up extremely quickly and is tall for her age now (14)

My DS was 2lbs10oz at 31 weeks and even he is completely caught up with his peers (he is 6). His early birth was due to placenta failure which is also the reason they think DD was so small so that was a link

My daughter was 2nd or 4th centile, can't remember now. She's still very small, aged 4 wearing age 2 clothing for example. She has been diagnosed with a small bladder which is causing her issues, treatable, unknown if related to being small or just one of those things.

DS1 was a small baby and consistently below 10th centile throughout his growth. As long as baby shows consistent and healthy growth, there shouldn't be anything to be concerned about. Your health visitor will be able to reassure and keep a good eye on how they grow. DS1 was always behind in clothes sizes but is now a fairly tall 8 year old who, in a few years, will be taller than me lol. I was always so worried about his weight and size as a baby, it's now just a distant memory.

DS2 was a slightly bigger baby and progressed well around the 50th centile range.

A little girl in our NCT group was born at a similar weight and by 4 months had over taken my daughter born at 6lb13. My daughter is now 3 and 1st percentile for height and noticeably shorter than this little girl.

My daughter dropped to the 9th percentile after birth and stayed there until I took out dairy and soya at 4 months. She moved up to the 35th percentile but has since leveled off on the 25th percentile

I was born at 6lb2 and my sister was born at 6lb13. I was always on the 2nd percentile. My sister was only 7lb10 at 10 weeks and under the 0.4th percentile. She reached the charts around 1 and started moving up at 2. As adults we are both slim build I'm 5ft2 and she's 5.4. our other sister was always a fairly typical size as a child and is 5ft3 and same build.

Babies are born in all sizes but it does feel stressful when they are right on the bottom. It's not necessarily a problem but might mean that you need to keep a keener eye on issues that might lead to feeding issues such as tongue tie (the baby in the NCT group had a tongue tie but thrived on formula after having it cut), allergies like my daughter or reflux like my sister.

My son was born at 4lbs 3oz,he was born at 36 weeks due to his size,he was better off out than in, he's 7 now & he's fairly average for height & weight, he is slight but not far behind his peers,also I'm quite short I'm under 5ft, baby 2 was also born at 35 weeks & was over 7lbs,he was born earlier due to a reduction in my waters

DD was born at 39 weeks at 5lb5, we think she was small because of genetics. She is now 2.5yrs and still on the same percentile and wears size 12-18 month clothes.

DH's family are pretty tiny so I blame their genes.

The ways it impacted her:
-The doctors were quick to needlessly give her antibiotics because being low birth weight made them categorise her as higher risk of infection. This caused her no end of issues later, including multiple life threatening allergies which she'll probably have for life.

• they did some extra checks when she was born to test her hearing, i can't remember what else.
• we had to use preemie nappies for a while
• I had to hold her really firmly against my breast when breastfeeding because my breasts were large and she'd keep slipping off.

As she's got older it's made life much easier as she's very cute and portable! Also, everyone thinks shes a genius because her vocab is advanced for her age but physically she looks much younger, so we get lots of funny reactions to her chattering away while being the same size as a 1 yr old.

My baby was 2nd centile, he's 1 on the weekend and bursting out of his 9-12 month clothes. He took a while to get going (was still in up to one month at 8 weeks) but he's always been absolutely fine. Someone has to be 2nd centile 😊 try not to get too caught up in centiles, as long as you're seeing wet and dirty nappies and they're growing, they're going in the right direction

DS was 5lb 14oz at 38.5 weeks, 2nd centile, we are both on the short side.
He was a very healthy baby, had 100% attendance in nearly all years of schooling and is a robust adult who made 5’8” tall in the end.

There's a lot of variety in how they grow in the early days.

My boys were tiny. 2nd centile at 34 weeks. They are whopping 3 year olds now. Sturdy as tanks and extremely boisterous.

DC4 was born full term and 75th centile. She's 5 months old now and closer to 91st centile. I find it hard to get over how massive she is compared to them!

DD was born at 38 weeks. Bump had been measuring a bit small but not the to point that anyone flagged any concerns. She was 5lb 4oz but quite long (think she was 0.4th centile?) so classed at ‘low birth weight’. We had to stay in for several days because she struggled to feed. She got the hang of it and we joke she’s been making up for it ever since! She was tiny until she was about 6 then she seemed to catch up. She’s 11 now and she's 90th centile for height and weight! Had to see a paediatrician and he asked if she’d always been like this, er no! We are now trying to encourage her to be active and eat well. Honestly once we had got past the initial few weeks establishing a feeding regime it’s never really impacted on her.

Same my daughter is due to start school in September and is in 18 month clothes. The last set of clothes she outgrew went straight to my friend's second child - her first is the same age as my daughter. I am really hoping she grows over the summer so I can actually buy her a school uniform!
She small but very sturdy and chatty. I get a look of relief in the park when I tell them she's 3 and not 1.5 like their kids of the same size!

We’re not sure if it’s genetics or a growth problem, my bump size started dropping off at 34 weeks but things weren’t confirmed until 39 weeks as sonographers struggled with measurements in scans. They then induced me and he was born by caesarean. He’s struggling to latch so we are feeding formula as well as expressing what I can, I’m so scared of failing him but as a first time mum I’m quite clueless when it comes to feeding!

My DD was born at 38w and was 5lbs 12oz. She had a diagnosis of suspected IUGR. I had very high BP at the end of pregnancy, i was also high risk ASPRE and had high pressure in one of my uterine arteries, so i suspect that was the cause. She was then ill after birth and dropped to 0.4th centile for weight but kept at 75th centile for height. At 2.5yrs however, she had caught up and was 75th for both height and weight. This was all after we started weaning - she never really caught up whilst i was bfing, even though we also topped up with formula.

DD2 was also little (though not as little) at 6lbs 3oz and born at 39+3. Again, i was high risk ASPRE, high uterine pressure and also developed preeclampsia this time. It didnt seem to affect DD2's growth in utero as much and i had extra growth scans durinh pregnancy to keep an eye on her. She is currently 99th centile for height and has just got back to birth weight at 3weeks old

My 5lb 12lb little dot is now a strapping 5ft 10 15 year old boy. He was the smallest of my babies, the chubbiest of my toddlers and is now an averagely built teen. And when I say chubby toddler I mean he was super chunky.

Reach out for as much face to face support at you can. I had a few appointments with our infant feeding team and spoke to my HV. It was during covid so I didn't have breastfeeding groups running but I would go if I have another. My bosses wife is a lactation consultant and one of my colleagues found her helpful.
In those early days you just need milk in baby, you can figure the rest out as you go.
My dad was prem in the 60s and only weighed 2lb3oz the hospital had him settled on condensed milk when he left hospital as it was higher calories than the formula available!

There are too many possible reasons op. I wasn’t born 2nd centile but dropped straight down to it spent most of my childhood there, I think it scarred my mum but I’m fine! Then I turned into a fit, healthy, 5’4’’ teen who was always fairly skinny, and a perfectly normal adult.

My DS was born at 37 weeks due to placenta issues and weighed 5lb 13oz. This dropped to 5lb 2oz due to tongue tie and latch issues and he only reached his birth weight at 4 weeks old. Switched him to formula…..he’s now 9 months old….tipping the scales at almost 25lbs and is in the 91st centile. He’s also in 12-18 month clothes. He’s more than caught up! I’m sure your LO will too. Congratulations!

*meant to say switched him to formula at 4 weeks old as I had low supply, his tongue tie wasn’t picked up until 4 weeks and I just desperately wanted the weight gain to pick up. My BFing support was truly awful and non existent however.

DD was born 39+6 and was 5lb 6oz. Midwives kept trying to cart her off "back to SCBU", she was so tiny they thought I'd snuck her out... but absolutely no concerns or issues with her and we were discharged within 24 hours.
She'd been detected as being small at circa 28 weeks so had lots of growth scans and monitoring, but stayed on a steady line at approx 2nd percentile - she's almost 8 now and remains anywhere between 2nd -15th percentile. Height wise she has growth spurts and will catch upwith her peers, but then they'll overtake her again. She's super slim, but eats plenty and has lots of energy. She was quite late walking (16 months) and had quite bad balance, so she was under a specialist for about 3 years. They concluded she's just... pretty clumsy! She goes to dancing, swimming and acro classes and we're noticing improvements as she builds up strength. But other than that's she's really energetic and healthy. She's in year 2 and has only been off school due to chicken pox since starting.

I'm 5ft 3, DH is 5ft 8. MIL is 5ft and very slim so we're assuming it's genetic

DD was on the 8th centile, the paediatrician was happy the even though she was very small, she was in proportion and developing normally.
She is still smaller than some of her peers, but perfectly healthy.

DD1 was 6lbs 1oz at 40 weeks and was 5th centile. Now 4 and 9th centile for weight around 50th for height. Is slight compared to her friends but has no heath issues. Generally a clothes size behind so just gone in to 3-4 now. Was always slightly slower on the physical milestones like crawling and walking but very early with things like speech/counting etc.

Had more scans on 2nd pregnancy as DD1 was classed as small for gestational age. DD2 born at 39 weeks, 6lbs 3oz and 8th centile. Has gained weight much quicker and now around 25th centile. Shorter than DD1 and visably much chubbier.

I am slightly 5ft 4 and around 8 stone 10. My mother and father are the same as were their parents. Husbands side more average sized.

Both babies came home the same day and on last baby they said placenta looked very healthy so I think genetics is a factor for us. Try not to worry babies like adults come in all shapes and sizes x

My eldest was 5lb 3 at birth, same centile as your little one. Aside from the fact that he slept loads and would only feed for a few minutes at a time there were no health issues or worries.
He is now a very slim 20 year old.
All my subsequent pregnancies I had multiple growth scans and all my children were born at similar weights.
They couldn't see any problems with the placenta, and no other reasons for their low birth weights other than maybe genetics as all my siblings and me were small at birth, all around the 5lb and a bit mark.
Please don't worry about your little one.
Congratulations!

If you want to bf then do hire a lactation consultant who might be able to help you with the latch.

They told me at the hospital that because she was proportionate i.e. small weight AND small height AND small head circumference it was just that she's naturally a small baby. It would have been different if they were tall but underweight, that would have been indicative of a medical issue.