I came back from the pediatrician and she said my baby weighed “ 12.8 lbs “. Does that mean 12 lbs and 8oz, or does it actually mean 12.8 lbs, which would be around 12 lbs and 12oz?
I’m from a “kg” country so this is a bit confusing to me, and I’m not used to that dot in the middle. Basically, my question is – does my baby weight 5.8 kg or does he weight 5.6 kg?
In: Mathematics
Yeah, it’s confusing. In a medical context, “behind the scenes”, everything is done in metric. (e.g. many drugs are dosed in mg/kg), but since the weight of the patient overall is generally discussed in pounds, that’s the number often listed on the (medical) scale, and the number the doctor tells you. (If the scale was made for cooking or shipping, it would list ounces.)
Decimalizing the pounds makes it really easy to convert between the two, without wondering if the appropriate 1/16th fractions were applied every time.
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