In the UK, there is considerable pressure being placed to get rid of the 20 year old weight charts and use more up to date weight charts that are reflective of babies who drink breast milk. The 20 year old charts are based on formula fed babies who tend to grow more quickly than do breastfed babies. But the weight chart problem is not one that is strictly related to the UK.
Breastfed Babies are Too Skinny
Whenever a breastfeed baby is told to gain more weight, the rallying cry is ‘beware the growth charts’. And it is true that if your pediatrician bases his ‘failure to thrive’ diagnosis solely on weight charts, your breastfed baby could have the unfair disadvantage of being compared to formula fed norms. And formula fed babies are fed more calories overall and tend to grow more rapidly.
Now Formula Fed Babies Are Too Fat
However, opponents to replacing the charts point out that if all the norms are based on breastfed babies, then formula fed babies will be deemed ‘too fat’. I have even read one commentary where it is feared that moms will be forced to unnecessarily put their formula-fed babies on diets because now faster weight gaining babies will measure to high.
Just My Humble Opinion
My humble opinion on the whole matter is that any doctor that tells you that your baby is too fat or is too skinny and is not doing well based solely on looking at one chart is a quack. Find a new pediatrician if this happens to you.
Formula fed babies tend to be chunkier and grow more quickly but as long as you’re weaning them from formula to a healthy well balanced nutritious diet–you have little to worry about.
Breastfed babies tend to be skinnier. As long as you’re breastfeeding on demand, for at least the first year and giving them healthy solids like fruits and vegetables you likely have little to worry about if junior is not quite ‘up to par’ on the charts. And what if your baby is below the percentile on the weight charts?
There are other factors to look at before suggesting a baby isn’t getting enough food. How many wet diapers does he have per day? Is his head circumference growing at a normal rate? Is he alert and hitting developmental markers? People grow at different rates and measuring an infant’s ability to thrive based solely on one chart–is frankly, a bad idea. It would be like telling a mother that she didn’t feed her kids because as adults they didn’t make the average height of 5’ 6”. It just doesn’t make sense.
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