WHY IS MY BABY LOSING WEIGHT?

Newborns can lose up to 10 percent of body weight in the first three days after birth. Although this would be drastic for an adult, taking into account the circumstances of the newborn, it’s considered normal. When this happens, don’t panic and – importantly – don’t blame it on breastfeeding. Here’s why: The newborn, having spent the first nine months of life in a sea of slightly saline amniotic fluid, is waterlogged, and 75 percent of his body weight is fluid. You know how your skin feels after a long bath or swim in the sea? Your baby is no different and uses up this extra fluid during the first three days, when breast milk is still in colostrum form (highly concentrated milk that contains very little water). Feeding is not only nutritional during the first three days of life. During this time, feeding is a learning event. The baby learns to suckle and milk the breast, to live in air rather than in water and learns to connect with you both physically and emotionally.

Your baby will also lose fluid (and consequently weight) through the intestines when stools become very soft (and yellow) after passing meconium (Baby’s first poo).

This sticky poo contains excess bilirubin, which helps to prevent baby jaundice.

Weight loss during the first three days is carefully monitored. Too much weight loss can happen when Baby is fighting an infection that was contracted in the womb or during the birth.

That’s why good antenatal care is vital to help prevent or treat maternal infections. Newborns also need to be kept at a stable temperature, ideally skin to skin with a caregiver. Newborns can’t shiver when they’re cold, but fortunately they have a supply of unique brown fat to insulate them. Metabolising this brown fat to keep warm should be for emergencies only. If newborns are allowed to be left cold for a long time, adrenalin steps in to increase their metabolism, which means that they use up too much oxygen and stored glucose (energy), resulting in excessive weight loss. Newborns who are allowed to get too hot (incubator babies are at risk) can also lose weight.

Heat increases their metabolic rate to help them sweat, but this also increases oxygen consumption, and Baby may lose too much water, leading to unnecessary weight loss.

Skin to skin (caregiver and baby chest to chest), rooming in with a caregiver or kangaroo care for premature babies is the best way to prevent complications such as these.