June 12th 2006- I am starting this blog as a way for me to keep track of my daughter's growth and progress and to give me a creative outlet during the very hectic and busy time of early mothering. I am going to start with the facts. So, this first post might be a little dry but I want to document the little things that she might be interested in when she gets older. Adrianna was 6 weeks old yesterday. She was born on April 30th (Sunday) and she weighed 7lbs 10 oz and was 18 18 1/2" long. Adrianna was born at 10:16 pm. We did early discharge so we left the next evening at 10:16 pm after her pku test was given. We went to the pediatrician, Dr. McMillan the next day and she was down to 6 lbs 15 oz on the traditional scale. We came back to the pediatrician's office on friday for another weight check and she weighed 6 lbs 13 oz on the digital scale. When I prompted them to weigh her again on the traditional scale, she had not lost any weight at all. That is when the race began for Adrianna to gain weight. I don't know why but a lot of pediatricians believe that babies have to gain back their birth weight within 2 weeks of being born. As a result, they say you are supposed feed them every two hours even if it means waking them up to do so. There is debate about this by some people. As my mother says, babies don't starve themselves and they should be fed when they cue for food (most babies cue for the breast by sticking their hands in their mouths). We scheduled an appointment for the next week to weigh her again. At this appointment she gained 6 ounces which supposedly is in the acceptable range (they are looking for 5 -7 ounces per week). And we made an appointment for the next week. I was either sick or had bad allergies that week and I don't know if this affected the nursing but she only gained 3 oz that week. I had to beg for those three ounces too because the nurse didn't record the weight correctly the first time. The scales at the pediatrician's office is on a scale of 0 to 10 while there are 16 ounces in a pound. So every time the digital scale shows a weight the nurse or doctor has to look at a conversion chart which translates the scale to from 10 to 16. When the nurse weighed her this time, she was 7lbs 14 ounces on the scale which converted to 7 lbs 16 oz according to their chart. But the nurse only recorded the 7lbs 14oz which meant Adrianna had only gained 1 oz. After that, the appoinments/weigh ins felt like tests of how good a mother I am.

I went to a lactation consultant as suggested just to make sure there wasnt a serious problem. She determined that despite a small issue with the our latching technique, everything was fine. I always thought breast feeding would be easy because I have large nipples. But because of my nipple size, Adrianna was having a hard time latching on and she wasn't taking in the whole areola which is where sinuses are. However, despie all the drama and fuss made over her weight gain, she has consistently gained an average of 6 ounces per week and is a healthy happy girl. I am not even sure why they make such a big deal about weight gain since every scale is different and will vary by a couple of ounces which is huge for a baby. In addition, a baby can weigh several ounces more due to a full tummy or a full bladder/bowels. So in reality the weigh ins and all the alarmist drama around them are pretty useless except that they worry the mother. If the baby is alert and healthy and is hydrated and has a good nunber of poops and pees then she is fine. I sometimes think that western medicine likes to justify its own existence by worrying people about things that really should not be a concern.