Growing on the Curve
You’ve made it through those first few days and weeks of breastfeeding! Hurray and good for you! Now your baby is getting weighed and your Care Provider or public health nurse tells you that your baby is on the 50th percentile for weight. Or maybe your baby is at the 75th percentile. What about at the 10th? What does this even mean? Do I want my baby to be at the 50th or the 100th? Is this a test and have we failed? Sometimes it can be a little confusing. Let me give you the low-down on the growth curve.
The World Health Organization is responsible for releasing Growth Charts. They compile a collection of weights of breastfed infants to compile a range of expected growth. The main take-away from this is that if your baby weighs in at the 50th percentile, for example, then 50% of babies their age weigh more than them. If your baby is at the 10th percentile, for example, then 90% of babies the same age as your little one weigh more. All this means is that if you took roughly 100 babies, your baby would fit somewhere in that range. But is this good?
What your IBCLC and Care Provider want to see is that your baby continues to sit right around their percentile. My babies liked to hang out at around the 25th percentile or lower but from weight check to weight check, their care provider wanted to make sure they were continuing to grow by following that curve. What the curve shows us is that they are putting on weight and growing as expected. Being at the 10th percentile, 50th or 75th is neither bad nor good. It is merely your child growing to their genetic potential.
Where the concern rests is if your sweet baby starts dropping from percentile point to percentile point. For example, we pay attention if your little love was born at the 75th percentile and at 2 months old your baby is at the 50th percentile and then at 4 months old your baby is sitting at the 25th percentile. Our concern is that your baby may be struggling to gain as expected. Often this takes some careful evaluation to correct. In these instances, a closer look should be taken to determine the why factor. It doesn’t automatically mean your baby was starving, merely that they may have been consuming just a little less than we needed to maintain expected growth.
I could go on for ages so don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or concerns about your baby’s growth!