All Things Breastfeeding Episode 93: What's the Deal with Infant Growth Spurts?

What’s the deal with infant growth spurts?

infant growth spurts The fact is we aren’t sure. One theory is that the babies are growing faster so needed more calories. The idea is the babies ate more frequently because they needed more food! However, a recent 2024 systematic lit review shows that this is most likely not true. It is true that there are times when babies do nurse intensely for several days. The problem is instead of understanding that this is a common part of infant growth and development, both families and health care providers panic and reach for infant formula which undermines milk supply. Sigh.

“In a systematic review of 120 studies, Davanzo and Baldassare found unsatisfied hunger, fussiness, and short intervals between feeding times have been documented as commonly and hastily attributed to inadequate milk supply. In order to provide an easy-to-understand explication for these, unsettled infant behaviors have been connected to the so-called infant growth spurt.”

Growth spurts are commonly believed to be short periods of time when a child shows a faster growth rate in height and weight until reaching physical maturity. They are often considered to be at roughly 2–3 weeks, 6 weeks, and 3 and 6 months. This term “infant growth spurt” has been embraced by websites on maternal health and/or breastfeeding, magazines for new parents, and certain public health recommendations on early childhood feeding.

“However, there is no evidence that this disproportion (of frequent feeding) might be due to a biological trigger, as suggested by the term “spurt”, but rather simply to physiological variable maternal production, which is expected to be periodically and transiently reduced or frankly inadequate, even in a mother who successfully breastfeeds. Low milk production, insofar as the infant is healthy and properly latches to the breast, can be overcome in most cases by exploiting the mechanism whereby the greater the baby’s request and the longer time spent sucking at the breast, the greater the stimulus to produce breast milk.

In fact, the weight growth of a healthy breastfed infant may show, at subsequent checks, a slowdown or arrest of growth followed by phases of true weight recovery (short-term catch-up growth) rather than acceleration (growth spurts) triggered by an endogenous mechanism.”

infant growth spurts In other words, these “growth spurts” are not associated with increased infant growth.

So what are these periods of frequent feeding? They are real! Babies do have days when they seem to eat more intensely. Nancy and Barbara talk about possible theories. Nancy calls them “increased frequency days’ and wonders if either the parent or the baby have gotten a bit complacent with feedings and the baby needs to bump up the supply. Barbara wonders if they are associated with parent hormone drops. The milk ejection reflex is not as strong so the baby needs to pick up their nursing skills a bit. Practice makes perfect!

We still don’t know the answer to what is happening but it is a interesting question to think about.

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All Things Breastfeeding Episode 93: What’s the Deal with Infant Growth Spurts?

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