Weighing a baby before and after nursings (test-weighing) is the usual method of measuring how much human milk a baby receives at the breast, but test-weighing is not very reliable if mechanical scales are used. A sensitive electronic scale, however, can solve this problem.Two scales, Olympic’s SMART scale and Medela’s BabyWeigh scale have been found accurate enough to measure milk intake during breastfeeding (Meier 1994; Meier 1990). In addition to using one of these scales in the hospital to evaluate the effectiveness of a baby’s early nursings, in many areas Medela’s BabyWeigh scale is also available for rent, so mothers can use it at home after discharge to alleviate concerns about milk intake, the most significant worry for many mothers of premies (Hill 1994; Meier 1993). Information gained from test-weighing may help a mother learn to evaluate her baby’s effectiveness at nursing and boost
her confidence in breastfeeding.