Measuring and monitoring a baby throughout its development is important to ensuring that the child is developing as expected. However, it’s not just the baby’s weight that’s important to keep an eye on during growth. Doctors, nurses and parents should also be monitoring the feeding of the baby.

When using a bottled method, this is not a complicated process, simply reading the bottle both before and after feeding will give you an accurate reading of the baby’s intake. However, with breastfeeding, this is not possible. Therefore, a slightly more complicated method is necessary to understand whether the baby’s intake is where it’s expected to be at that stage of its development and how it compares to their size and growth.

The baby should be weighed on an approved Class III baby scale, for an initial starting weight. The baby should then be fed and weighed immediately after. Then, subtract the pre-feed weight of the baby, from the post-feed weight of the baby. This will give you the weight of the breast milk intake.

However, to make life a little bit easier on you busy medical practitioners and parents, our stocked seca scales have a function for this built in. Now, you have the reliability of a class III approved scales, an incredible resolution as low as 1g and the ease of calculating breast milk intake with a simple button press.

To measure breast milk intake on a Seca scale, weigh the baby before feeding and store the value using the “STO” button until an “M” is displayed on screen and a tone is heard. This value is then stored within the scale until next needed. It won’t be lost, even if the scale is turned off.

After feeding the baby, place the baby back on the baby weighing scale. The display will show the current weight of the baby. By briefly pressing the “STO” button once more, you will see the current weight, minus the stored weight. This is the weight of the breast milk intake, although this function can be used for many other purposes. Such as, tracking the baby’s weight changes between weight checks.

If you’re interested in purchasing a baby weighing scale for your facility or home, take a look at our complete range of baby weighing scales here.