Did you know that breast-fed babies and formula fed babies have different growth charts? Breast-fed babies tend to be leaner and gain weight at a slower rate than artificially fed babies. Make sure your pediatrician uses the correct growth chart when weighing and measuring your little one. Many a well meaning pediatrician has inadvertently recommended supplementation to exclusively breast-fed babies bexcuse they’re using the CDC growth chart which was standardized on formula fed babies. In 2006, the World Health Organization released revised growth charts that are representative of healthy breastfed babies throughout the world. Until our doctors are familiar with them, we need to keep ourselves informed so that doctors don’t undermine our confidence to breastfeed our babies.

Healthy breastfed infants tend to grow more rapidly than their formula-fed peers in the first 2-3 months of life and less rapidly from 3 to 12 months. All growth charts available before 2006 (which are still used by many health care providers in the US) included data from infants who were not exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months (includes infants fed artificial baby milk, AKA formula, and those starting solids before the recommended 6 months. The American Academy of Pediatrics revised their  guidelines on introducing solids for parents to wait until 6 months. A lot of. pediatricians will push to start solids at 4 months because they’re not current on the latest guidelines). Since many doctors are not aware of this difference in growth, they see the baby dropping in percentiles on the growth chart and often jump to the wrong conclusion that the baby is not growing adequately. At this point they often unnecessarily recommend that the mother supplement with formula or solids, and sometimes recommend that they stop breastfeeding altogether. This is often a cause of unneeded stress. Next time you’re at your peds office, ask which chart they’re using. For more information on growth charts, see kellymom.com