Four Outfits for a Four Month Old!
Sonja has been outside of my body for four whole months now! I don't know where all that time has gone, but I've been doing my best to document it as it goes. I want to remember each detail of her little life, but I have the worst memory. So, I take LOTS of photos. I think I have over 900 photos last time I checked.
This past Friday, we went to her doctor (Naturopath or N.D.) for a check up, she had a tiny bump on her head that had me concerned, turns out it was a slightly enlarged lymph node (like we thought). While we were there, her doctor checked her weight, height, and head circumference. I also mentioned that EVERYONE comments on how tiny she is. I know she's a baby, but seriously, people ask how old she is and then proceed with, "oh, she's sooo small." Anyway, I HATE those charts graphing growth of babies, but since everyone has been commenting on her size, I asked if she looked small. Dr. Alexandria said she would take her weight (13 pounds 4 ounces) and height (25 inches) and her head (16 5/8 inches) and compare them to the the percentile charts- even though those charts are based on formula fed babies and SLC is breastfed.
Turns out she is not that small. For her head, she is in the 75%. For her length also in the 75%. For her weight she is in the 50%, so she is skinnier than tall. She is a long but tiny baby, just like I hypothesized in an earlier post. I won't be questioning her size or shape again. I just got curious and now I know. She is perfect and I didn't need a chart to tell me otherwise.
I'm very thankful that her doctor recognized the difference between formula and breastfed babies and didn't tell me to supplement any formula to get Cupcake "caught up" to other babies. I know a lot of friends of mine have told me they weren't making enough milk and their doctors told them to supplement with formula. But those charts and percentiles are based on formula fed babies, so to compare breastfed babies to the charts is illogical.
Also, instead of having a mom supplement with formula, why not encourage her to increase her supply with simple things like taking fennugreek or Mother's Milk tea or an SNS system (allowing the baby to nurse and stimulate more milk)? There are lots of reasons I dislike doctors (M.D.) and the formula pushing pediatricians are one of them.
I'm loving our choice for Cupcake when it comes to her medical heath. She is free of chemicals, traumatic experiences, and has never been to a hospital. I love that she is NATURALLY healthy. I'm very thankful for her health and well being, I continue to make every possible effort to keep her the healthiest she can possibly be; including breastfeeding, avoiding pesticides, eating mostly (about 90%) organic foods, consuming probiotics and living a generally healthy lifestyle.
Happy Healthy Wednesday!
I just learned an interesting fact in nutrition this week. Antibiotics really hurt your digestive system and by the time you've taken your third series of antibiotics, you already have long term and sometimes irreversible damage. The antibiotics usually have effects like ridding your intestines of good bacteria. What really scared me was our teacher asked us how old we were when we had our third course of antibiotics; I had no idea how old I was and neither did the others in my class of 100 students. One student said that he was probably about a year old. That worries me that before we can even walk we've already damaged one of our major organ systems.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing em. Thats another reason breastfeeding is so important. It helps protect the digestive system. So often I hear of kids who breastfeed until they were 3 or 4 and how much less likely they are to get sick compared to the same household family members who were formula fed or breastfed for shorter amounts of time. They've had years of probiotics coating their lower intestine.
ReplyDelete