After birth, it is normal for the baby to lose weight in the following days until he receives food and begins to gain it. It is what is known as neonatal physiological weight loss in which Normally, they lose between 5% and 7% of the newborn's weight, and at most 10%, which they should no longer reach.
It is estimated that 10-14 days after delivery, the baby should have regained their birth weight, but according to a study by researchers at the Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey (United States), between 15 and 25 percent of babies take more than two weeks to regain their birth weight.
A weight loss that must be controlled
The study published in the journal Pediatrics analyzed the data of more than 144,000 children born with a healthy weight and shows that two weeks after delivery, 14 percent of babies born by vaginal delivery and up to 24 percent of those born by caesarean section were still weighing less than when they were born.
The physiological loss is usually more significant in the first three or four days after delivery. The reasons are due to the combination of three factors: the liquid that they lose through the urine, the expulsion of meconium and that they still receive little food (the first days they receive colostrum).
In the case of cesarean deliveries, they can lose even more weight because they are born more hydrated by intravenous fluids given to mothers before and during surgery.
When analyzing the data of newborn babies, after 21 days (i.e. three weeks after delivery), 5 percent of babies born by vaginal delivery and 8 percent of those born by caesarean section had not yet regained their birth weight.
A quiet
With this you want reassure parents who see that their baby has not recovered one hundred percent of the weight they had at birth even if two weeks have passed after birth.
Even so, it is always advisable to control the weight of the newborn (who carried out the study also developed an online tool to control weight loss after childbirth), as well as monitor your general condition To make sure that even if you don't gain weight as fast as expected, you are still growing healthily.
It is especially reassuring for breastfeeding mothers, since in these cases children may take longer to regain their weight:
The study authors point out:
"For families who want to breastfeed their babies, this is important to ensure that a slower recovery of the newborn's weight does not indicate that the baby is not ingesting enough milk, but is part of a normal growth pattern." said Crume.
