Baby Care

Taking care of a new-born is baby care, health care professionals are divided on the topic of routine weight measurements for healthy breastfed new-borns. Some clinicians reason that the measurements will have a negative impact on maternal breastfeeding confidence, while others maintain that an early weighing policy has positive implications for judging a new-born’s progress; especially for early diagnosis of hypernatremia. Overall, the evidence about the effects of weighing breastfed babies is weak and evidence presented frequently takes the form of letters to the editor or opinion pieces. McKie et al. favour weighing babies when midwives make home visits and they determined that breastfeeding duration was not affected by these routine weight measurements. Their study included interventions that supported breastfeeding, which makes it difficult to determine if the supportive interventions balanced out the potentially detrimental effects of routine weighings. MacDonald et al. suggest that weight measurements provide an objective evaluation that is superior to other assessment methods. Sachs et al. on the other hand, questioned the use of routine weight measurements and suggested most babies are weighed more often than the clinical practice guidelines recommend. Sachs et al. questioned if a mother's confidence in her ability to breastfeed can be undermined by too frequently assessing newborn weights.