When our baby is born, after a good time with mother, with whom he takes his first feeding, he is measured and weighed to have a reference of what his evolution will be.
It is well known that the usual thing from that moment on is that you start to lose weight. It sounds dangerous, it sounds like a mistake that needs to be fixed, but it is something practically inevitable and normal that will soon be solved (if all goes well).
Now, weight loss has a limit and we must be careful that the situation is reversed, so today we are going to try to answer two questions in this regard: Why do babies lose weight and how much can they lose?
Why do they lose weight?
There are three main reasons why babies, despite being fed on demand from birth, lose weight:
- The expulsion of meconium: after a few hours after they are born, babies expel their first poop, meconium, a viscous, dark, sticky substance and could even say that it is difficult to clean, a result of everything that the baby has been swallowing during pregnancy . Actually, the following poops will also look similar, so it is estimated that the baby comes with 90 grams of meconium in his intestines that of course, when eliminated, they reduce the baby’s weight.
- Babies urinate too: yes. They not only poop, but also pee, and not just once, but several a day. Through urine, and perhaps through sweat, they lose fluid and weight.
- They still eat little: In the mother’s womb he received “food” constantly through the umbilical cord, but once he is born that is over. The baby is consuming energy just by living. Even if they barely move, even if they sleep, their body needs energy, and they don’t eat much at first. If the baby is breastfed, he will be taking colostrum, which is a very important substance for the baby due to its composition, but it reaches him in small quantities. It is not a mistake, it must be so . The baby’s stomach is receiving food for the first time and at the moment of birth it begins to colonize with the flora that it receives in its first contacts with the outside and that will help it digest what it eats. At first you have to eat little (but on demand, nature already takes care of it). If you are taking formula, you will not have colostrum, but the rule is the same: a newborn cannot take more than 10 ml per feeding on the first day, so it will not be enough to prevent weight loss.
How much weight do they lose?
This is a difficult question to answer, because some lose very little and others a lot. There is no single answer, so we have to talk about a range, a percentage of weight that is considered normal. The problem is that it is not yet known how much that percentage is.
It is often said that the normal thing is for them to lose between 5% and 7% of the newborn’s weight , accepting as a limit a maximum of 10% (if born with 3,200 kg, lose 320 grams). Something like “when it reaches 7% we must pay special attention to prevent it from reaching 10%. If it reaches 10%, we have not been able to solve it.” That is, we should try not to reach that 10%, because if we get there then we have to run . Come on, fix it yes or yes. We cannot do tests and find that when we weigh it again, it has already reached 11% or 12%.
Why do I say that it is not well known what that percentage is? Well, because recently a new review of studies on this subject has been carried out and the conclusion cannot be said to be clear. I’m talking about an analysis of studies that assess the weight of babies born at term, healthy and exclusively breastfed.
In this review they found that the average weight loss of these babies varied between 3.79% and 8.6% , and that the point at which most of the children had lost the most weight occurred between 2 and 4 days after birth. From that moment they began to gain weight.
However, they evidenced significant methodological flaws in the research : gaps in data collection, lack of documentation of the type of feeding of babies, insufficient sample of babies exclusively breastfed, babies who lost more weight than left the study, etc. ., and concluded that well-designed clinical trials are needed to address these limitations .
Come on, new well-conducted studies could yield different figures and therefore, in the absence of more reliable information, we will continue to move on the figures we have discussed. A maximum loss of 7-8% and from that moment on to assess the way forward very well to try not to exceed the limit, the red line, which means losing 10% of the weight.
Act? Give him a bottle?
To act is to make an urgent and conscientious assessment and follow-up. Assess the feeding to see if there is a position problem (poor position, pain when sucking, cracks in the mother, nipple that is deformed after feeding, etc.). See how the baby suckles, what he does, if he falls asleep right away, if after falling asleep he asks again crying or rests for a while, if he is pooping, what color is the poop, if the baby has a sublingual frenulum or retrognathia, if The mother may have a hormonal problem that is affecting its production, if she is giving it on demand, frequently, if the delivery went well, if she had any bleeding, if it was by caesarean section and there was separation, if she has been given a pacifier, if they have given him a bottle, yes …
And based on all that data, act. Perhaps promoting the extraction of milk to increase production and supplement the baby with a syringe (finger-syringe), perhaps giving him artificial milk, also with a syringe , to prevent him from losing weight while looking for solutions, etc. Whatever it takes to get the baby to gain weight while helping the mother to breastfeed , if that is what she wants.
Photo | iStock, Thinkstock
In Babies and more | The first days with the baby: weight and height at birth, Physiological loss, How to know if the baby is getting enough breast milk: weight
