Do you round up when weighing babies???

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My cousin had a baby recently, and being a labor nurse she wanted me there. Unfortunately she delivered at a different hospital than where i work, so i was not able to do anything nursing whys. It was sooooo frustrating. Anyway, when they weighed the baby she weighed 6 lbs 1.6oz. Now i've always been told in that situation you round up to 6lbs 2 oz. Have I been doing this wrong? The nurse announced 6lbs 1 oz. I know this is silly to fuss over one ounce, but it makes a big difference to the families. I want to tell them the correct weight. Your input please.

Specializes in OB.
Well, the only thing I can think of is that the office nurses are a bit more tentative with newborns, all "ooooooohing" and "aaaaaaaahing" whereas nursery nurses get right down to business - meaning that they'll really take those legs and stretch them out whereas the office nurses are a bit more gentle. I'll just go with the longer length, but I think I will take a quick measurement myself later on, just so I know. I should have done that weeks ago but it just slipped my mind.

Actually, if your baby had a lot of molding to the head (you know - one of those really elongated heads) the baby could measure shorter later when the molding had resolved and the head rounded out.

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Specializes in Telemetry, Nursery, Post-Partum.
Actually, if your baby had a lot of molding to the head (you know - one of those really elongated heads) the baby could measure shorter later when the molding had resolved and the head rounded out.

I was going to mention this too. I saw you had a c-section, but did do some pushing, so maybe that had an effect? I also noticed that the different nurses I work with measure differently, some do it on the scale, some run a tape measure along the baby's back, some mark the top of the head and the heel on the blanket and measure between the marks. Its always stuck in my head my first preceptor telling me that length is the most inaccurate measurement we do.

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Specializes in postpartum, nursery, high risk L&D.

for documenting purposes we use grams. I tell the parents the exact weight in lbs and oz and then they can round up or down or whatever they want.

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Specializes in Family.
Well, the only thing I can think of is that the office nurses are a bit more tentative with newborns, all "ooooooohing" and "aaaaaaaahing" whereas nursery nurses get right down to business - meaning that they'll really take those legs and stretch them out whereas the office nurses are a bit more gentle. I'll just go with the longer length, but I think I will take a quick measurement myself later on, just so I know. I should have done that weeks ago but it just slipped my mind.

As a former office nurse, I agree with this. We frequently had babies measure shorter at the 2 week check than at birth. I asked once and was told it was because L&D nurses are better at stretching them out than we were.

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