2-Week Pediatrician Check-up

Audrey is doing well. She weighed 7 pounds 8.5 ounces, which puts her in the 25th percentile. By this time she should have regained her birth weight, which was 7 pounds 2 ounces. Since she exceeded that, we know she’s growing well and getting plenty to eat. Her length is still 20 inches; 40 percentile. Head circumference is 36 cm.; 50 percentile. The pediatrician picked off the last little bit of her cord, so she has a cute little belly button now. She looks just a tiny bit yellow, but not enough to cause concern for jaundice. Her eating, sleeping, etc habits are all normal. They drew blood for a repeat of the newborn metabolic screen, which they also did at the hospital, and for the optional supplemental screen, called the Baylor screen. The Baylor screen isn’t covered by insurance, but only costs $45 and tests for a bunch things that the other one doesn’t cover. The nurse pricks her heel and squeezes it to get drops of blood to fill in 9 little half inch diameter circles drawn on a paper which are used for the tests. Usually, they only have to prick the heel once, but Audrey just wasn’t giving any blood. The nurse pricked each heel two times. At first Audrey handled it ok, but after what must have been 30 minutes of this, she just about lost her mind. It was heartbreaking to see her cry so much. Her next visit will be a 2 month check up on December 9th. She’ll get some immunizations then and that should allow us to be a little less paranoid about her getting sick.