Do you know if your newborn baby is gaining weight?

How many babies were weaned because they did not take enough weight (others, rarer, were taking too much)?

Weight problems concentrate all that makes breastfeeding difficult, namely the lack of confidence of everyone in the possibility of women to normally grow their babies with the milk produced by their breasts.

This doubt is everywhere. It is with the mothers themselves. He is in their familial and medical entourage. It is in the media.

This doubt is with us. It explains the systematic supply of supplementary feeding bottles, one of the main causes of the early failure of breastfeeding. It spreads rapidly in the Third World, reinforced in some cases by ancestral beliefs.

This doubt is nowadays. But it already existed in the old days. How else can we explain that in the Middle Ages, newborns were given porridge to make them more “solid”?

To annihilate this doubt, however, it would often be enough for one thing quite simple: look at the child instead of looking at the scale.

The benchmarks

Before we rush to the scale, and to determine if a baby is drinking enough, we can count the diapers: as long as he is fully breastfed, five to six layers well wet and at least two stools per day (after six weeks the stools can be very scarce) reassure already much. The baby is awake, his general condition is good and feedings go well.

Most babies lose weight during their first few days. They lose a lot of water, especially because of the dry air in the maternity wards. Do not hesitate to bring a saturator (or to put a wet towel on the radiator), and of course to breastfeed often night and day. Without giving baby bottles that decrease the frequency and intensity of breastfeeding, they may cause confusion breast/teat, dilute the protective effects and nutritional value of breast milk.

This weight loss can reach 10% of birth weight, and recovery can take up to three weeks. If the weight stagnates at the beginning, the behavior of breastfeeding should be observed: the position of the baby in the breast, suction efficiency, feeding rhythm, etc. If this is not enough, the child must undergo a thorough medical examination that can detect something else.

Some babies start up, take more than the usual 25 g, double their birth weight well before five months and break the weight curves. No panic, no need to put them on a diet! With the milk of his mother, the child receives the best possible food. It benefits him. But maybe between 12 and 24 months, he will only take a few grams, and there too we will not have to worry.

The majority of breastfed babies follow the growth curves of the health books in the first three months, and then their weight gain seems to slow down, unlike babies fed surrogate milk. This does not mean that breastfed babies are lacking. In fact, the current weight curves were established several decades ago with children fed with substitution milk, which induces different growth. The goal of the diet is not to make big babies but healthy children, be reassured, there can not be better or better adapted than your milk.