Growth Charts and Percentiles

Do you know what your baby’s percentile is?

Have you ever wondered where it came from or what it means?

Are you worried about your baby’s percentile?

Once you hear this episode, you won’t worry about it anymore.

If you are a new listener, we would love to hear from you.  Please consider leaving us a review on itunes or sending us an email with your suggestions and comments to badassbreastfeedingpodcast@gmail.com

WE HAVE TRANSCRIPTS!!  You can also add your email to our list and have episodes sent right to your inbox!

Things we talked about:

Why do we need to know percentiles? [4:48]

Where it all started.  Abby thinks the formula companies [9:23]

Abby is part of the statistics – she’s white and born in Ohio [10:16]

It wasn’t meant to be the only diagnostic instrument [12:03]

Following the growth pattern [15:39]

How many babies are born worldwide each year? [17:29]

Breastfed babies gain faster in the beginning [22:20]

Weight for age [22:38]

Birth length [24:00]

Head circumference [25:13]

Babies should be weighed on the same scale [33:03]

Look at all the things [34:54]

*This Episode is sponsored by Original Sprout and Sheila Darling Coaching

Links to information we discussed or episodes you should check out!

https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/episode/045-becoming-a-breastfeeding-advocate/

https://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/2000GrowthChart-US.pdf

https://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts/background.htm

Set up your consultation with Dianne

https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/consultations/     

Check out Dianne’s blog here~

https://diannecassidyconsulting.com/milklytheblog/

Don’t Forget!!  Dianne and Abby have started the new parenting podcast!  Check out Revolution Parenting!  

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1755123/8400508

Follow our Podcast~

• https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com

Here is how you can connect with Dianne and Abby~

• Abby Theuring  https://www.thebadassbreastfeeder.com
• Dianne Cassidy http://www.diannecassidyconsulting.com

Music we use~

Music: "Levels of Greatness" from "We Used to Paint Stars in the Sky (2012)" courtesy of Scott Holmes at freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott Holmes

Transcript

dianne (00:00):

Welcome to The bad breastfeeding podcast. This is Dianne, your lactation consultant.

abby (00:25):

and I'm Abby. The badass breastfeeder. And today's episode is sponsored by Sheila Darling Coaching. Sheila Darling is a social worker, certified hypnotherapist and mindfulness meditation teacher. And could be your start to a more peaceful life. And today's episode is also brought to you by original sprout. Original sprout carries safe, effective, and pediatrician tested shampoos, conditioners, styling, and body care products produced and packaged in California USA. Um, we'll hear more from our sponsors later, um, but these sponsors make this podcast possible. So if you can please head to badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com and check out our sponsor page. If you need anything, check there and see if you can give any of our sponsors your business. Um, and while you're, while you're there, scroll down and enter your email address, and we'll send you the episodes right into your inbox every Monday. Um, and now Dianne has our review of the week.

dianne (01:21):

It comes from our Gmail. We got an email, it was very exciting and it says it's from Gina. And she says, Hey, gals, still loving the podcast. My son and I are still going at 17 months. Woo! I wanted to drop you both a little note to brighten your day. My work hosted a health screening exam this week. Employees could take part in if desired. I was placed with a nurse who had just had her third child 10 weeks ago, a little girl, we got to talking and I mentioned, my iron has been a little low since I'm still breastfeeding my 17 month old son. She told me she was also breastfeeding a new baby, and we totally bonded over those early days. I then proceeded to write down a list of resources for her on the back of a spare exam card, a nod back to your breastfeeding advocate episode. But of course I recommended the podcast, Facebook, Dianne's services to her and told her to keep going. It does get easier. Thank you for what you do. Thank you, Gina!

abby (02:15):

That did Brighten my day. She was right.

dianne (02:18):

She's very right about that. That is share the love. I mean, just go out there and just like share the love because people don't have the resources or maybe they're not taking the time to find the resource. I could not imagine having to try to like Google stuff.

abby (02:35):

Oh my gosh, that's what I was doing. Oh my God. It was a horrible nightmare. Like that is insane. Googling answers to breastfeeding stuff. And it's, there is so much crap out there. You have to really accidentally find good information and you just won't through Googling.

dianne (02:52):

But if you have another, you know, like-minded parent that is saying to you , I found this resource helpful. That is amazing. Like, so share that, share whatever your resources are. We'd like it, that it's us. But if it's not whatever your resources are that you have found helpful, definitely share it with another parent because it's so important to help them through their day.

abby (03:16):

Yeah. And you think, I mean, we might think people don't, they're like, oh, well they're probably set. They're probably good. Like probably not actually, probably not. Like if we're talking about probables, like probably not doing really well and maybe don't even want to say it. Yeah. And you can just start talking about it.

dianne (03:33):

Awesome. So thank you so much, Gina. And thank you for the email and you can send your reviews, your comments, your stories, anything like that. To us, all the fabulous things you're doing to badassbreastfeeding podcast@gmail.com, or you can put it on iTunes where that helps the podcast to rank a little bit. So we always love getting those as well. And I check them both. So thank you very much. And onto today.

abby (03:58):

Yes. And I'm sure everyone has come into the contact with the dreaded growth charts and percentiles.

dianne (04:06):

I hate them.

abby (04:07):

been at the mercy of them.

dianne (04:09):

Hate hate is not even a strong enough word for the, distain I feel when somebody says to me something about a percentile, well, my baby's percentile is... The person the doctor said the percentile is... What do I do about his percentile? The percentile went down when people contact me and they're like, my doctor's very concerned. I might have to start supplementing my baby's percentile isn't where he wants it to be? Well, what is the, tell me what the weight is. I don't care about the percentile. The percentile means nothing. Tell me what the baby's weight is. I mean, the percentiles are ridiculous.

abby (04:48):

I don't understand why we even need to know it. Like I think it's, I think it's useful for like research and like, just knowing, you know, like how big people are, but like, you know, if that's something that's interesting, like, oh, you know, whatever, something that's interesting for a researcher based on whatever research you're doing, but like for an individual person to like, know where they are on their percentile is like, and then we have this thing. Like, so if you're a baby and you're like lower in the percentile, that's bad. But then if you're a grown up and you're higher in the percentile, that's bad, that's bad. And like the percentile is just like, all the people put together like you, like, why do you need to change where you, you don't need to change where you are in the percentile. It's just a, where you are in a group of people of averages. It doesn't even make any sense that we need to know this or be at the mercy of it. And we're so at the mercy of it,

dianne (05:47):

we are, we are completely at the mercy of it. That's a great way to put it. It's a great explanation of it because everybody is fascinated by whatever the percentile is. And I don't, I don't know what you, like you said, I don't know why we need to know why do they tell us, you know? And if you, a lot of it is based on like, and we're going to talk about this. Cause I did a lot of research into like where the history came from with it. But you have to consider your yourself and your partner and genetics and where you live and ethnicity and all of those things.

abby (06:24):

If your baby's breastfed or formula fed.

dianne (06:26):

exactly. Or both or neither. Right. Well, not neither, but you know,

abby (06:30):

like feed them cat food. Are You breastfed, formula fed or cat food fed? We have a separate percentile for that if you've chosen neither one of those other ones.

dianne (06:46):

But they're like, they're not looking at like, did you start solids at six months or four months? Did you, or, or seven months or 10 months, you know, like they're not looking at all.

abby (06:58):

This is a freaking baby. Like the baby's sick the week before that they came here because that'll make them that way less. Yeah. Because if they were puking, like that's what happened to Jack's percentile dropped like really far he had been was sick the week before. And they're like weighing him and all of the, and I was like, dude, he was puking all last week. Like I'm not, you know? And the doctor was like, yeah, yeah, I get it. Um, but like, that's gonna make a difference. It's a tiny little baby. Did they take a dump when they, before they came here? Right. That total, it doesn't make a huge difference.

dianne (07:32):

I tell people that all the time. Well, did they poop? Yeah. Well, there you go. They'd be three ounces heavier.

abby (07:37):

That's a huge difference. A tiny little baby and a whole bunch of poop comes out. That's going to change their weight massively, you know?

dianne (07:45):

And then you've got like, so, I mean, look at my kids, for example, I'm five foot 10. Their father is six foot four. My kids have always been in like the 90th percentile for height. If they were in the third percentile for height, there would be a problem. Like that would seriously be an issue.

abby (08:06):

That would be kind of weird.

Speaker 3 (08:07):

Yeah. Right. You have to look at, and I have met some people that are like, you know, the parent, the birthing parent is little petite, you know, the, the partner is little shorter, maybe not as big, whatever petite. And they're like, oh my baby's only in the 20th percentile.

abby (08:29):

So are you right?

dianne (08:31):

Like we, and I've actually had to point that out to them sometimes. And I don't want to be like, you're short because that doesn't, you know, like, but it's true. If you're little, why would you have a giant baby? I don't know why w why, what we're trying to do here. What we're looking at.

abby (08:47):

The one that gets me as the head circumference.

dianne (08:50):

Oh, wait to hear what I got about that.

abby (08:53):

Because Jack's always in like the 90th percentile. I told him that I always, you know, it was just like, oh, your head. Yeah. You've always had a big, yeah. And he's like, why? And I was like, I don't, I don't know. It doesn't mean any Jack, just forget it.

dianne (09:04):

Like, God, I used to tell people it was full of brains. Brains. Yeah. Right. When my older sister said, move your giant head out of the way of the TV. It's full of brains. Leave me alone. But yeah, the percentile thing is pretty ridiculous.

abby (09:23):

so where does it come from? And can I say formula companies?

dianne (09:27):

It is actually not believe it or not. Well, maybe some of it has a, well, let me, yeah, let me probably, yeah, there probably is some background to that because what, I didn't get a lot of it comes from like surveys and stuff like that, at least back when. So we're going to go back to like 1977, because that was when some of these growth charts really like, started to take hold. There was growth charts before that. But for one thing, we don't like nobody listening cares about those growth charts from 1929 and the 1977 growth charts are important because that is when the CDC picked it up. And that's when the, WHO adopted it as well. So the world health organization looked at our United States growth charts and they said, oh, we'll use that too,

abby (10:14):

oh, that was a dumb move.

dianne (10:16):

I know. So keep that in mind as we're talking about this, because this is pretty insane. So that really started in 1977, but it went from 1977 to 2000. They were not redone until 2000. So even though they're not like looked at every year and said, oh, let's adapt these for, you know, what's happening in our culture right now? No, they, they adapt them like, or they readapt them like right now they're starting to look at changing it again. And it's been 21 years. So we're looking at, for starters from 1977 to 2000, but when they were first developed, they were developed by the national center for health statistics. And then, like I said, they were adopted by the world health organization at that time as well for worldwide use. It was based on...this is Not going to be a surprise white formula fed babies from Ohio. That's what it was based off white formula fed babies from Ohio.

abby (11:21):

in 1977?

dianne (11:22):

Yes.

abby (11:26):

That was me! I was part of it! Actually I was born in 1976. So yeah.

dianne (11:34):

They took stuff from like years, you know, like, yeah.

abby (11:36):

So like in 1970, whoa, that'd be by a year. I mean, very well could have been formula my mom breastfed for three months. And then the doctor told her it was time to wean. And then I was formula... I'm assuming I was formula fed.

dianne (11:49):

or cat food fed.

abby (11:52):

Oh my God. And I was born in Ohio.

dianne (11:55):

Yeah. So this is like your, these are your people, right?

abby (11:58):

Yeah. I was part of the development of this ridiculous thing,

dianne (12:03):

but it even said in, in the research that I found, it was never intended to be used as a sole diagnostic instrument. That is not what they, what they intended this to be for. They wanted to look at okay, if your baby's in the 50th percentile, that being that there's 50 babies above them that are heavier 50 babies below them that are lighter or longer or head bigger or whatever. It just kind of gives you a status of like where you are in the mix, which is not supposed to be looked at as, oh, this is how your baby is, is doing, or your child like this, because they're doing these percentiles for, until you're like 20. So it's like, they're not supposed to be okay, you're in the 50th percentile. So there's something wrong with you. It's supposed to be, oh, you're in the 50th percentile. You are also meeting every milestone. You are also, you know, doing all the things and eating well and pooping and peeing and you know,

abby (13:06):

I don't see how it adds anything. It really, it doesn't add a single thing. No, again, except for somebody who's doing research on maybe like how different babies weigh across the world. Right. Here's how they weigh in the United States, here's the range in, you know, China, here's the range, whatever, but I don't see how it would ever be useful for like individual on an individual basis.

dianne (13:28):

unless you're from Ohio,

abby (13:29):

right. It's still not useful.

dianne (13:31):

Right. It's still not. So then they revised it in the year 2000, like I said, and it's kind of interesting because infants with the charts that are being used now that were made in 2000, that were revised in the year 2000, the infants are, have been more classified as underweight. So you have more infants now that are classified as underweight because of these percentiles than they did in 1977. And the, in that growth chart, they are less than....

abby (14:05):

I think they, then I think they did the chart wrong.

dianne (14:08):

Well, they just revised it depending on, you know, based on the data.

abby (14:13):

a whole bunch of the population underweight. Yeah. That doesn't make any sense.

dianne (14:17):

No, it doesn't. But I tell you it's, it's like, wait til you hear more of this, it's hilarious. Less often babies. Now with this, with these recent growth charts are less often classified as short length for age. And we have to keep in mind. None of this is based on varied, ethnic groups, none of it. So as I'm going to get into it a little bit more as we go along, but the newer growth charts done in 2000 do have, they are based on like more of a wider range. It's not just like a few thousand babies from Ohio. There is like a little bit of a wider range, but still not. When you're thinking about this as a world wide tool, how many babies are born in the world a year? Right? Like I can't even wrap my brain around how many babies that is. And we are just looking at a small little, tiny piece of them, but judging all the babies on this.

abby (15:22):

Judging something that doesn't make any sense. If you change the chart back then those babies are no longer underweight, right? If you change it to under other way than all of them are underweight, isn't it weird? This is like, it's not useful when you're looking at a baby in a doctor's office. It's not useful information for the individual family.

dianne (15:39):

Oh no. Not for the family at all. And they even say one of the things too, that I didn't know. Well, I know because I work in this field, but I didn't know when my kids were young, that many, many doctors, if they're looking, if they're using this tool correctly, if you want to even call it a tool for using it correctly, they should just be looking at where your baby is following what kind of a growth trajectory your baby is following. So if they're on the fifth, if they're born at the fifth percentile and they follow the fifth around the fifth percentile all through the months of the first year of their life, then they're fine. It doesn't matter that they're the fourth, fifth percentile, they're following their own trajectory. Right. They're following their own line. That's how it's supposed to be. It shouldn't matter. The number, what should matter is are they growing consistently with that number, right? And that's how it should be used, but they don't tell you that a lot of them don't tell you that. They're just like, we, you know, your baby is in this percentile or they tell the parent your baby's in the 13th percentile. And then that freaks a parent out because then they're like, well, my babies and I've, I've told many, many parents, you could have a baby in the 13th percentile and you can have a baby in the 90th percentile. It doesn't mean the baby in the 90th percentile is any healthier than the baby in the 13th percentile. It has nothing to do with that. It's just insane. How, how we build our whole, all our decisions on how we feed our child and how we look at their growth pattern dependent on these little numbers. That mean nothing.

abby (17:24):

Right. Let's talk more about that after a word from our sponsors. And also after a word from my Google search that 140 million babies are born every year.

dianne (17:32):

Oh, look at you. You're so quick with the Google.

abby (17:36):

see, that is what Google is useful for something like that, not your breastfeeding information. We'll be right back today's episode is brought to you by Sheila Darling coaching. The transition to parenthood can be intense. Feelings of anxiety and depression are actually quite common. Your feelings should not be ignored. You deserve space where you can process this transition and all of the emotional and psychological changes that come with it. You may hear people telling you to just enjoy it, or it all goes by so fast. These statements are dismissive of the changes we go through. When we have a new baby transitioning to a new family member, isn't always the peaceful journey we see on TV. Sheila Darling coaching can be that professional support person that Dianne and I are always saying, there is no shame in getting Sheila Darling is a social worker, certified hypnotherapist and mindfulness meditation teacher. And could be your start to a more peaceful life head to Sheiladarling.com to schedule your consultation today and mentioned the badass breastfeeding podcast and receive 10% off a coaching package. And today's episode is also brought to you by Original Sprout. Original sprout carries safe, effective pediatrician, tested shampoos, conditioners, styling, and body care products produced and packaged in California. USA scrumptious baby cream is a multipurpose protective barrier cream to keep smooth skin, to keep skin smooth, not smooth skin in smooth and soft natural zinc provides an environmental defense gentle yet ultra more moisturizing for happy skin and a happy baby. You won't need to worry about harsh chemicals, irritating your baby's skin. All of our, all of original sprout products are paraben and phalate free vegan and cruelty-free their proprietary formulas contain nourishing extracts from fruits, vegetables, and flowers that the whole family can enjoy. Made for babies, Perfect For grownups. To check out the entire line@originalsprout.com and use code badass for 25% off of your purchase@originalsprout.com. Uh, these sponsors and their promo codes can be found in our show notes. Under this episode on badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com. Our show notes also include further information about things we talk about in this episode and at badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com, you will also find our breastfeeding resources, all of our other episodes and information about scheduling your very own one-on-one online lactation consultation with Dianne, and now back to growth charts and percentiles into the good stuff now.

dianne (20:20):

So for the, for the growth charts that were developed in the year 2000, they took data from formula and from breastfeeding. So it's not even like if you exclusively breastfeed your baby, this is not the growth chart for you. You know, like it's mixed, this is it's mixed or looking at breastfed babies or looking at formula fed babies. And then they're at babies that were breastfed and formula fed. So it's like, there's a little bit of everything here, which is better than just having one that's better than just having only, you know, based on formula fed babies are only based on breastfeeding babies, but it's still not really like, geared towards what you're doing with your baby. And again, we're not looking at when, when did they start solids? You know, like, how is that? What happens when you throw that into the mix? You know, I mean, some babies do better with it than others. So how do we gear that there was no mention of that at all?

abby (21:20):

Or more like some babies start off eating a lot and other babies take a while. Thats normal. They're both good. And not one that's bad.

dianne (21:30):

Yeah. And they said that the, um, the 19th, the charts that were done in 1977, that was one thing that they mentioned was that they usually started solids earlier back then. And did they didn't take that into account either. So this is, you know, they're not really looking at how do you, how do you put that into the mix? I don't even know. So one of the things that they're saying with that is that breast, what they found, looking at all of this data, breastfed, infants gain more rapidly the first two to three months. And we know we know that to be true, right? We see that all the time. I mean, that is an average, if your baby isn't one of those babies that gained rapidly in the first two to three months, then don't worry about it because this is just an average, but that's typically what we see that the breastfed babies gain more in the beginning. And then they slowed down with their growth in the second part of the year. That is what we normally see. Babies that are formula fed, way more than babies that are breastfed in the last six to 12 months of the first year. So for months six to 12, your formula fed baby is going to way more than your breastfeed baby. That's just, that's what we see in the data. So you have to keep that in mind too, while you're looking at these growth charts. So weight for age. So there's a couple of things that there are, there are several things that they're looking at. They're looking at weight for age, right? That's usually what people are most concerned about. Length and head circumference. So, you know, they're looking at those three things, weight for age, the national birth weight distributions from the birth certificates. That's where they get the info from, from birth certificates from 83 million infants born in the United States, between 1968 and 1980 and 1985 and 94. So they looked at that. I don't know what happened between 80 and 85, that they didn't have any of that data. Yeah. They took a little bit of a break there, but that's where, what they're looking at. They're looking at the data of 83 infant or 83 million infants born in the U S between 68 and 80 and 85 to 94. And how many infants are born a year, 140 million?

abby (23:46):

140 million in the whole world.

dianne (23:49):

Right? So the birth length. All right. So that's weight for age. That's what they're looking at for weight for age birth length is that data was available only from Wisconsin and Missouri, the birth certificate. They looked at the birth certificate information, maybe Wisconsin and Missouri are the only ones that did length on the birth certificate. I don't know, but that's the only place they got the data from. They looked at 890,000 infants born from 1989 to 1994. And they used that information to develop the lengths for age and weight for length curves. So it's not even the same amount of babies. I thought silly me that it was all based on the same things, but there's different numbers of babies.

abby (24:43):

and on everyone in the country,

dianne (24:44):

right. And they're not looking at, and this is a worldwide tool, and they're only looking at Wisconsin babies for the length. Like this is a worldwide tool. So, all right. I'm not even gonna, we'll wait till I'm done till we can like totally bitch about it. So limited amount of data is used for the length for age charts. Limited amount of data had circumference the head circumference at birth, because if you're not going to start it from birth, what do you know? Where are you going from? Head circumference at birth is not available from surveys or birth certificates. So they just didn't have that information. So they use data from another study. It was called the FELS study- F-E-L-S study. 362 infants.

abby (25:36):

Oh, okay.

dianne (25:39):

So your baby's head circumference.

abby (25:42):

There were more people at the playground yesterday,

dianne (25:47):

right? Your baby that's your conference is based on 362 infants.

abby (25:52):

Oh my God.

dianne (25:55):

For an entire world of 140 million babies born a year.

abby (26:01):

I don't even get the head thing. Like where, why do we, why?

dianne (26:05):

Because if your, if your baby's head is like measuring too big, that could be a sign that there's fluid on the brain. Okay. So like there's a point to it.

abby (26:15):

Wouldn't there be other signs that you got fluid in your brain?

dianne (26:19):

I don't know. I'll take neurology at my next, my next life,

abby (26:27):

it's like, they're always just like, wow, your head baby's heads really big. Okay.

dianne (26:32):

on an ultrasound they all look humongous. Yeah. But I mean, it's just, and of course we know that their head is, you know, their head is big in comparison to their body when they're infants. I mean, that's just how it is. Like oh, my baby's head is really big. Yeah. Well, based on what, 362 other infants, that's what they're comparing your baby to 362 other infants from probably like 30 years ago. I mean, this is insane.

abby (27:02):

That's not a reliable way of finding fluid in a brain. I don't think... It's got to be other diagnostic tools that we're using. I'm sure there are.

dianne (27:10):

But I said to you last night, cause I was texting Abby about this last night and I said, this, whoever developed, this is on crack, they're smoking crack. This is ridiculous. Like it's and none of it is consistent. And then it kept saying, cause I got this information. There's a whole, if anybody else wants to like look into this, if you're really interested, the CDC has a whole history about how this is put, put out. And it's very, very, in-depth about like how they figure the curve and all that stuff, which was way too mathmatical for me.

abby (27:43):

All these People are in cahoots with the formula companies. They are right. And you know, this is a perfect way where they swoop in and they go, oh your baby, you know, your baby's only in the 10th percentile, you know, we might need to start supplementing with some formula, you know, to like, you know, boost their weight a little bit or you know, your baby, you know, it's just not, you know, we need to, you know, this is a perfect setup for this kind of push that we know is going on everywhere.

dianne (28:12):

And they have said in this, they keep saying over and over again in, in this write-up, this is growth Depends on environment, DNA, genetics. Like we shouldn't be looking at only what a percentile is and they are not looking at different ethnic groups, different cultures, you know, different, um, socioeconomic status. They're not looking at any of that when they're doing these charts, none of it, right? Your baby is being based on some white kid from Missouri. That's what they're looking at or Ohio. I mean, and if, if you're not a white baby from Ohio, then you might not measure up at the same rate. It's just crazy. Really. When you think about it, that we're, and we're living off, these people get obsessed with the percentile.

abby (29:11):

Not everybody gains weight at the same rate. No, like you're not supposed to do have somebody who's falling, you know, who was in the 30th and now they're in the 25th and now they're in the 20th because they don't gain weight as fast as the other people in that, whatever, how it was created. And you know, supposedly everyone else, their same age,

dianne (29:34):

you really have to look at how they're doing developmentally. You know, you have to, you really have to keep that in mind. So everybody, uh, you know, I'm talking to you guys out there that are looking at your baby's percentile and saying, oh my gosh, my baby's percentile was cause you see, it usually do see, at least I've seen a drop in percentiles with babies as they start to get into like four or five, six months because breastfed babies gained slower After that first few months, we know that to be the case. We do, but your pediatrician might not see that because they're used to formula fed babies that gain more after six months and your baby, if they're exclusively breastfed might be slowing down on their weight gain, but they're still growing in length. Their head is still growing. They're developing, they're doing all the normal things, but God forbid, they're not at the percentile that is expected of them.

abby (30:36):

Right. And at the end of the exam, when everything looks normal, they go, well, we're really concerned about this percentile, right? Like you just checked the baby and the babies. I think it's more useful. It's more useful to be like, is the baby growing? Are they, do they weigh more or are they longer than the last time they were here? That's what I always say too. That's growth. Right. I w I remember going early with Jack early on and she like measured Jack on the, on the, um, she like laid him down, you know, they lay him down and make the pen marks.

dianne (31:14):

That's real technical. Isn't it?

abby (31:15):

I know. Yeah. It was real, like real scientific. So she, then she measured that and she looks, and she goes, hold on a second. And then she like, did it again. And she was like, let's have him grow. And she just like, did it again. And like, made sure it was bigger this time. I was like, all right, thanks.

dianne (31:33):

I have had still we're in what, 2021 now. And we're still doing length that way. I mean, I don't know how you know, honestly,

abby (31:40):

but how do you measure a baby? I mean, like you do, we need to, it's just clearly are they, if they're growing, they're growing, right.

dianne (31:49):

Can they make one of those, you know, like in the shoe store where you put your foot into that thing and it, why can't they make that for? I have actually had people here, hopefully this is not going on. But if it is in your pediatrician office question it. There are still pediatrician offices here where I live that are using those old scales where you have to like inch it over a little bit.

abby (32:10):

Oh yeah.

dianne (32:11):

And it's like, when you're looking at ounces, when you need it to be right.

abby (32:17):

And that doesn't measure ounces. Doesn't even measure pounds reliably and ask them the last time that machine was calibrated.

dianne (32:23):

Right. I'm always like, it has to be the same scale. Is it the same scale? I don't know. They just bring them from room to room.

abby (32:29):

No, it's true. They do. They just wheeled a little baby scale around it's on a little rolly cart. It is.

dianne (32:37):

We bring the baby. I bring the baby to scale. You know, like it's in one spot.

abby (32:42):

No, no, no, no, no, no. They roll it in on a rolly cart. Oh my God. And they roll it from office to office.

dianne (32:47):

Yeah. Find out when that thing was calibrated. And if it's the same one, ask the question.

abby (32:52):

I'm Sure it's not the same one because there's 20 fricking infants in there for their appointments when we're there. Theres not just one, there's a few of them floating around. Yeah Nope. Gotta be the same scale. If we're worried about weight, they better be weighing that baby on the same scale and a better be a digital one. And if they're telling you that, it's like, oh yeah. Well, you know, we're just gonna like move this little thing over, like we're back in 1975. No, that is not working. You cannot look at that for your baby's weight. If they're questioning the weight. What I do with families at this stage of the game, like when I've families, they contact me. And they're like, the doctor's concerned about weight gain. And usually the baby's right around for like four or five months, we will, we'll do a weighted feed again, because it's like, okay, if your baby's gain is slower, which is normal for that age, for them to slow down on the pounds and ounces, let's look at what they're transferring, you know, like, yeah.

abby (33:48):

That's the most useful way of measuring. And then that's the most useful, like weighing situation is where you weigh them, baby, you know, before they feed and then feed the baby in the office and then weigh again.

dianne (34:02):

Yep. That's the best way to do it. And that way you can take that information back to your pediatrician, say, I know his weight gain Isn't where you'd like it to be, but we saw a lactation consultant, and this is how much Milk transferred. And he is growning in length.

abby (34:15):

By the way, a Lactation consultant is The only one who's going to do that for you, your pediatrician's not going to do that. Yeah. You're not going to, they're not going to be like, oh yeah, sure, no problem. You just will weigh the baby. And then you sit in here, you nurse, take your time and then we'll weigh them again. No way. They're like, you gotta get out of here. We got 500 patients in the waiting room.

dianne (34:32):

Yeah. I mean, it's just, this is it's silly. It really, I mean, it's just the percentiles as much focus as they put on it.

abby (34:43):

Yeah. There's too much focus on it. I mean, I can see, like if you go in and there's like red flags flying up and then you see that baby hasn't grown you know, then okay, then we need to look at that,

dianne (34:54):

but you need to look at all the the things. You need To look at everything. All the things. It cannot be just that number. It can't not at all. So that's yeah. That's what I, that's your, basically in a nutshell where we got the percentiles from.

abby (35:10):

that's, um, disturbing,

dianne (35:12):

isn't it though. Yeah. I was just like, this is insane.

abby (35:16):

Well, thank you, Dianne. For all of that information,

Speaker 2 (35:20):

It's fun to learn. Always learning, always learning folks. And we'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. [inaudible].