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Below 5th percentile? confused?

hrking2011hrking2011
in Preemies

So I took Teagen to her ped today and she weighs 5lbs 2 oz from 3 lbs 11 oz! He said her adjusted age was 1 week old. He said that her motor skills were advanced for how little she is but shes below the 5th percentile. I don't understand what this means?

Also when I asked what milestones she should be hitting right now, he just said pooping atleast daily. What have your doctors said?

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Re: Below 5th percentile? confused?

  • jjilly7jjilly7
    does your pedi follow an age chart based on her due date, or birth date? Our pedi uses one based of LO's birth date, and well preemies are developmentally compared to those around their due dates, so if your pedi is like mine, your LO falls under the 5th%tile for babies born on lo's due date, which is completely normal. My Lo didn't get on the charts for his actual age until he was about 6 months (actual) old. LO now is at the 25th% for his actual age, and he is 10.5 months.
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  • hrking2011hrking2011

    Im honestly not sure, she was screaming like crazy so I didn't get to listen to him real well. I think her due date. Is her being below the 5th percentile really bad?

     

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  • kar5162kar5162 member

    Based on what you wrote, my guess is your pedi was referring to her weight.  They should be looking at her height and weight compared to both her adjusted age and actual age, with the adjusted age being the important one.  At just over 5lbs, she is very small compared even to a 1 week old baby (obviously super tiny compared to your average almost 2 month old). 

    It's not necessarily bad, but since that means that 95% of girls her adjusted age are bigger than her, it's something they will most likely want to monitor very closely for the next few months to see if she is gaining well along her growth curve or whether she seems to be gaining particularly slowly and not tracking along her growth curve.  Then they'll look towards things like reflux, health conditions, feeding difficulties, insufficient feeding intake, etc to try to get her to grow along a typical curve (and that typical curve may well be at the 5% if you/father are small). 

    Are they having you bring her back in a few weeks for a weight check?

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  • lemen99lemen99 member
    imagekar5162:

    Based on what you wrote, my guess is your pedi was referring to her weight.  They should be looking at her height and weight compared to both her adjusted age and actual age, with the adjusted age being the important one.  At just over 5lbs, she is very small compared even to a 1 week old baby (obviously super tiny compared to your average almost 2 month old). 

    It's not necessarily bad, but since that means that 95% of girls her adjusted age are bigger than her, it's something they will most likely want to monitor very closely for the next few months to see if she is gaining well along her growth curve or whether she seems to be gaining particularly slowly and not tracking along her growth curve.  Then they'll look towards things like reflux, health conditions, feeding difficulties, insufficient feeding intake, etc to try to get her to grow along a typical curve (and that typical curve may well be at the 5% if you/father are small). 

    Are they having you bring her back in a few weeks for a weight check?

     

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  • IncogNeatoIncogNeato member

    If her adjusted age is 1 week and she weighs a little over 5lb then she is around the 5th percentile for weight for her adjusted age. My LO was a late-term preemie and was born at 36 weeks. They didn't do adjusted age for her and she was around the 3rd percentile for weight so that sounds about right.

    And no, it's not bad. Somebody has to in the 5th percentile! They will just keep an eye out to make sure that she stays around the same percentile as she grows and that she doesn't lose any percentiles which would imply that her growth was slowing.

    My LO has hovered around the 3-5th percentile since birth and briefly fell off the charts but my ped isn't concerned since she's been pretty consistent. 

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