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Why do we weigh newborns


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Yeah, I think it is an easy way to make sure a baby is growing properly.

 

As far as IMMEDIATELY after birth, the hospital I birthed at doesn't care when it is. My first I had them do right away because I wanted "full credit" for what I pushed out (a friend had recently had a baby go to the bathroom right after being born and lost an ounce or two ;)). My most recent was weighed a couple hours after birth, IIRC.

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:lol:

I don't know the 'real' reason, but the first thing I thought of was bragging rights. :D

My SIL had a 10 lb 6 oz baby and you know, it's like a badge of honor. :) People still gasp when I say my biggest was 9 lb 2 oz...

Anyway, I know that isn't really why... just a random thought that came to my head. :)

 

10 pounds, 8 ounces here. Tell your SIL I win.

 

Bwahahahahaha. Just kidding.

 

Seriously, my very experienced midwife underestimated him by a 1.5 pounds, a mistake she never made. She was just amazed.

 

I think they just like statistics, as well as being able to know if the baby regains weight after birth.

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I don't know when it started but I guess we do it now to easily measure against loss and gain in those first few days/weeks. If a baby loses more than 10% of weight then they start to get concerned, then there are other milestones, when to expect doubling, tripling etc. Everything has to be exactly quantified it seems.

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10 pounds, 8 ounces here. Tell your SIL I win.

 

Bwahahahahaha. Just kidding.

 

 

 

LOL, you and I are tied--my last was 10 pounds, 8 ounces as well! I must say I am hoping this current baby (also a boy) is not that big though. I expect him to be at least 9 1/2 pounds, since I've had 2 other boys that big, and even my girls were all in the high 8's--I grow big babies!

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10 pounds, 8 ounces here. Tell your SIL I win.

 

Bwahahahahaha. Just kidding.

 

Seriously, my very experienced midwife underestimated him by a 1.5 pounds, a mistake she never made. She was just amazed.

 

I think they just like statistics, as well as being able to know if the baby regains weight after birth.

 

I'm sure she'll be happy to let you keep that title. ;) Her next baby is due on Halloween - she's hoping to be under that 10.6 mark with this one. ;) (Partly because, I'm sure, someone gave her a lot of cute little girls clothes....ahem... and she wants them to all fit when the baby is born, since it's her first girl and all. ;) :lol: )

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10 pounds, 8 ounces here. Tell your SIL I win.

 

Bwahahahahaha. Just kidding.

 

Seriously, my very experienced midwife underestimated him by a 1.5 pounds, a mistake she never made. She was just amazed.

 

I think they just like statistics, as well as being able to know if the baby regains weight after birth.

 

10 lbs, 11 oz for my first, so nanna nanna booger to you:D The doc who "knew everything" underestimated by 2 lbs.

 

I guess they weigh for measuring growth and how fast the baby regains the birth weight. At our local hospital, mom can't hold the baby until they have done all their stuff, including weighing. Lots of babies get supplementation to "get back to birthweight. At my homebirth, dd didn't get weighed for about 2 hours.

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Yeah, I think it is an easy way to make sure a baby is growing properly.

 

As far as IMMEDIATELY after birth, the hospital I birthed at doesn't care when it is. My first I had them do right away because I wanted "full credit" for what I pushed out (a friend had recently had a baby go to the bathroom right after being born and lost an ounce or two ;)). My most recent was weighed a couple hours after birth, IIRC.

 

My second did that -- his official weight was 9 lbs. 10 oz., but the MW said I could probably count a couple more ounces, LOL. (My MW totally missed how big he'd be, just like the MW did with the first one. With the first, they said probably no more than 8.5 pounds, even if I went to 42w; I only went to 40w6d, and she was still 8 lbs. 11 oz. The MW thought DS1 would be about the same, and I kept insisting that he felt bigger than DD to me. Clearly, I was right. I was a 6 lb. 5 oz. baby myself, as was my mom, and I'm all of 5' tall; DH is tall but wasn't a big baby either, so we were totally not expecting big babies.)

 

None of mine have been weighed immediately after birth; it's always been at least an hour later, if not more. I think we weighed the two little boys about an hour or so after birth, once they'd nursed a bit and cuddled, because we wanted to see how big they were before calling everyone with the baby news. After DS1, everyone was anxious to see if DS2 would top 10 pounds (he didn't), and then DS3 was early, so we were curious. (He was a full 8 pounds at 38.5 weeks, so he was clearly on track to be the same as his big brothers, who were 41w1d and 40w5d.)

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In addition to measuring growth post-birth, weight may be indicative of the baby's health. Being small-for-gestational-age (SGA)/IUGR can be a sign of issues.

 

Yes, this -- I remember the sheet that the MWs filled out after our first two babies' births had spots to check off for "small", "average," or "large" for gestational age. I suppose they do it immediately so that it's all pretty level -- baby is what baby is, before any feeding or lack of feeding affects things.

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10 pounds, 8 ounces here. Tell your SIL I win.

 

Bwahahahahaha. Just kidding.

 

Seriously, my very experienced midwife underestimated him by a 1.5 pounds, a mistake she never made. She was just amazed.

 

I think they just like statistics, as well as being able to know if the baby regains weight after birth.

 

I had two that were ten and a half pounds. They were pretty easy labors. The hardest one was my runt at eight and half pounds.

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I assume they do it for the same reason that I weigh my pups as soon as they are born. I know how much weight they should put on in the first week. If they are not meeting that weight gain (or close to it) than it tells me either something wrong with the pup, or the mother isn't making enough milk. I actually weight by the day for the first week and I know what's happening before the week is done.

Babies have an average amount of weight they should gain within specific time periods. Weighing the baby at birth gives them a base line to measure that from. Knowing weight gain tells them how healthy the baby is (to an extent).

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In addition to measuring growth post-birth, weight may be indicative of the baby's health. Being small-for-gestational-age (SGA)/IUGR can be a sign of issues.

 

 

:iagree:

 

My youngest had IUGR and was about 2 lbs below average weight for her gestational age. We used weight to gauge when certain milestones should happen, such as maintaining body temperature. We also needed to keep careful track of her weight for many other reasons. In an IUGR/premie situation even gains as small as an ounce is a big deal.

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Immediately after birth? Does anyone know when or why that practice started?

 

 

LOL, I don' know how immediate it was, but **** it I wanted to know that he was as big as he felt, lol. (10lbs2oz, AFTER pooping on my twice).

 

But seriously, it helps you know how much weight they are gaining/losing...other than that, just bragging rights.

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I know for hospital births, they start blood sugar checks pretty quickly on large babies. They should really wait to do weight checks until after the first hour, but sometimes they don't...

 

Yes. My 10lbs 7oz baby had low blood sugar for the first 2-3 days. He had to go into special care because they couldn't get it up at first. Apparently it is an issue that larger babies can have. I have heard that it is more common in boys - my 10lb 10oz girl didn't have any problems.

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Well, I think in addition to wanting to be able to compare later on part of it is just because that when the mom and baby will be dealing with so many different people, they want an objective measure. If people want to know if the baby is big or small, they can see that, but if the next person to come along is a different person that isn't terribly helpful.

 

And I think we tend to think that if we measure things precisly, we have more or better knowledge than we did before. That isn't always true, but people feel that way.

 

As far as taking the baby right away rather than waiting for an appropriate time, I think it is a power thing.

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I know for hospital births, they start blood sugar checks pretty quickly on large babies. They should really wait to do weight checks until after the first hour, but sometimes they don't...

 

I had one quite small baby and my midwife asked if I was sure about the date, and brought in a pediatrician to determine if the baby was a premie, and the nurses checked blood sugar a few times before our release. All appeared to be okay despite size, so nothing much was done on their end after that. They also measure head size and chart it for a while, too.

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