I wish a medical professional would answer this question with a simple yes or no.
The more doctor’s appointments we go to, the more confused, stressed, and worried I get. Why? My six month old daughter has been labeled as failure to thrive.
A Little History
Baby girl A was born at 40w, 1d. I had gestational diabetes that was well controlled on insulin and her birth weight was 6 lbs., 15 oz. Other than that, it was an unremarkable pregnancy.
During the 1st month, baby girl was nursed and was doing so almost constantly (at least it felt that way). She would nurse for a few minutes, take a break for a few and then nurse again. It was a long cycle. After a month, I gave up on breastfeeding. It was a good decision because even with formula supplementation, she had only gained weight at 75% of the rate that is considered normal/average for her age.
Another month passed and we realized that she was fussing while feeding from the bottle – she would pull off mid-feed, arch her back and cry. She was clearly in pain. She had acid reflux. It took us about two months to get her on the right medication and feedings magically improved! Yay! We figured this out…or so I thought.
At her three month appointment, things really went sour. Prior to this appointment, it seemed like she was at least growing a lot lengthwise, but not so much weight wise. At the three month appointment, her primary care doctor (PCP) was beginning to worry. We saw a pediatric gastroenterologist and even a neurologist. She’s had an ultrasound and a lot of different blood work done. Thankfully, the ultrasound was negative and the labs came back within normal range. Neither specialist is finding anything that is of concern and I honestly cannot even keep track of the number of appointments we’ve been to at this point.
Developmentally, she’s right on target. She smiles and laughs when you play with her. She has been rolling (forwards and backwards) since she was 3 months old. She has recently started to “army” crawl her way around the floor. She does great with eating “solids.” Other than appearing small, there are no other red flags. But then we see her PCP, she starts to look for what we’re missing and instead of going back to thinking that she’s small, I begin to freak out and worry too.
So far, she’s just small and we haven’t found a reason why. At the same time, I just wish someone would say, “hey, she’s small but that’s her ‘normal’.”
UPDATE: So many people reached out to share their experiences with their children who were labeled as failure to thrive. It has been wonderful to hear from you. I truly appreciate it.
I did a little more digging with regard to my older daughter. She was a big baby at birth, 8 lbs., 10 oz., but I don’t recall that she was ever big after that. Well, it turns out she wasn’t. It took her an entire year to double her birth weight. The baby is already close to doubling her weight at almost 7 months. I think the big difference is the size that they started out at (nearly a 2 lb. difference between them).
At this point, I’m going to calm down and not freak out about this so much. Given how long it took her sister to double her size, I’m going to guess that that’s just how these girls roll when it comes to growing. I’m fine with regular weight checks and the like, but I think we’re done looking for a mysterious illness that we can’t find out because it probably isn’t there.
Rosa Rants 