A Weighty Issue

This post originally appeared in my old blog, www.the-alice.co.uk

Last week I was distraught to find out that Elfie’s weight had dropped to a tiny 8lbs 4 oz. Obviously at 10 weeks old, this was not a good thing.

My local health centre has cancelled their drop-in weight clinics so she hadn’t been seen for 4 weeks – in this time she had only put on 6lbs. We had been feeding to a loose routine but pretty much on demand, 4 hourly and stopping only when Elfie refused to eat. I really hadn’t any concerns; although I knew she was a small baby she had been signed off by 2 doctors (a locum and my own doctor) and had been given her innoculations by a nurse who wasn’t worried at her size. It was pure luck that brought us to the weight clinic in Buckinghamshire where my mum volunteers once a week.

We were prescribed 3 hourly feeds by the lovely Health Visitors, and told to keep feeding even when she starts refusing. Immediately Elfie came on in leaps and bounds, she was way more alert, stronger and started cooing at us. The change is amazing!

At her weigh-in today she was 8lbs 8 oz which is an increase of 4 oz over 5 days, thank goodness. Moving forward we are to persist with the strict feeding routine and hopefully she’ll be piling on the pounds in no time. I am disappointed in my own doctors as they didn’t pick up on the fact she was severely underweight – they even refused to weigh her when I requested (apparently it’s something they just ‘don’t do’). I will be hunting out a new doctor’s surgery as soon as possible.