What to Put on a Birth Stats Print

Four facts: the baby's name, the date they were born, their weight and their length. That is the whole list, and it is the one I would keep. Time of birth, hospital, city and star sign are all optional, and every one you add makes the others smaller and harder to read from across a room.

I paint and letter these to order, so I see what people send me. The ones that still look right five years later were edited before they were ordered. Here is how I would decide.

What information actually earns its place on a birth stats print?

Work out what the print is for. It is not a medical record — that exists already, on paper, in a folder. The print is the version that goes on a wall, which means it has to survive being read at a glance by someone standing two or three metres away.

Name and date carry the whole thing — they are the two facts a visitor will actually read. Weight and length earn their place because they date the child: a birth weight is the one number that makes the baby in the photographs a specific baby rather than a generic newborn.

After that, returns diminish quickly. Hospital name, city and province are worth including only when the family has moved since, or expects to. Time of birth is the one I argue about most, so it gets its own section below.

The two Fern & Nest baby gifts built for this lay the fields out in a fixed order under the name, with the artwork above: a goose with bows on one, a wildflower sprig on the other. Both are painted first and lettered second, which is why the field list has to stay short — there is only so much space under a painting before the lettering starts shrinking.

Do you put the time of birth on it?

I would leave it off, with one exception.

Time of birth is the field that ages worst. It matters enormously for about a fortnight, to the people who were awake for it, and then becomes a number nobody reads. It also forces a formatting decision — 03:14 or 3:14 a.m. — that you are stuck with.

The exception is twins, or any birth where the time is the story: two prints reading 03:14 and 03:31 are a pair, and the eleven minutes are the point. If that is your situation, ask before you order rather than typing it into the name field. I would rather lay the print out around it than squeeze it in afterwards.

Metric or imperial — and does it matter?

It matters more than people expect, because it is permanent and because it is the field most likely to be remembered wrong later.

Canadian hospitals record birth weight in grams and length in centimetres. Almost every Canadian family then repeats it in pounds and ounces, because that is how grandparents ask. Pick the one that matches how the family will say it out loud for the next twenty years, not the one on the discharge sheet. A print reading 3,402 g is accurate and nobody will ever quote it; 7 lb 8 oz is the same baby in the words the family uses.

Length is the opposite. Nobody says a baby was twenty inches long, so centimetres read better there. A mixed print — pounds and ounces for weight, centimetres for length — is not inconsistent, it is how people talk. I will set it either way; I only ask that you decide deliberately rather than sending me the raw hospital line.

Can you order a birth stats print before the baby arrives?

No, and this is the practical problem with giving one as a shower gift. Three of the four facts do not exist until after the birth.

There are two honest ways around it. The first is to give a piece that needs only the name — a monogram or name print from the baby girl nursery range, which can be ordered as soon as the name is settled. The second is to give the birth stats print as a card now and order it in the first fortnight, once the numbers are in. A gift that arrives at six weeks lands better than one that arrives in a pile at the shower, and the first fortnight is also when those numbers are still written down somewhere findable.

How big should it be, and where does it hang?

Lettering sets the floor on size. A print that is mostly painting can go small; a print carrying four lines of text cannot. I would not order a birth stats print below 8x10 in (20.3 x 25.4 cm), and I would treat 11x14 in (27.9 x 35.6 cm) as the default if it is going on a wall rather than a shelf.

The sizes I print are 5x7, 8x10, 11x14, 12x16, 12x18, 13x19 and 16x20 in, on matte paper, from about CA$14 to CA$47. The 5x7 (12.7 x 17.8 cm) is for a shelf or a desk, close enough to read, and it is the only size where I would cut the field list to name and date alone. At 16x20 in (40.6 x 50.8 cm) the lettering is comfortable at any distance, but that is a large piece for a nursery and it wants a wall you have stood in front of.

There is also a digital download at about CA$32, which suits printing locally or a second copy for a grandparent. I would not pick it to save money — by the time you have paid a print shop you are close to even. Pick it because you want the file.

What do you check before you approve the file?

The spelling of the name, and then the spelling of the name again.

Everything else on a birth stats print can be argued about. The name cannot, and it is the field most likely to go wrong, because the parents know how it is spelled and I do not. Unusual spellings, a silent h, a double consonant, an accent on an e — send it exactly as it should appear, in the case it should appear in, and read the proof as a stranger would rather than as the person who typed it.

After that: check the date format reads the way you want it (03/04 is two different days depending on who is reading), check the weight unit, and check that the length has a unit at all. I send a digital proof before anything is printed, and the proof is the moment to be fussy.

Where else does the same information go?

On the thing the baby actually uses. A woven name blanket carries the name rather than the numbers, and that is the right division of labour: the print holds the data, the blanket holds the name, and the two do not compete. It comes 50 x 60 in (127 x 152 cm) and 60 x 80 in (152 x 203 cm), from about CA$84 — the larger one is a child's bed throw, not a cot piece.

If you want the numbers on cloth, a milestone blanket is the better route, because the monthly photographs do the same job over a year rather than a day. I have written about how to shoot those so they match: how to take monthly baby photos that actually match. The Fern & Nest blankets are all made to order, so lead time matters more there than on a print.

Once the fields are settled, the next decision is whether this piece hangs on its own or becomes the middle of a set. A birth stats print is a strong single, because it is the only thing on the wall nobody else can own. If you are building a small group around it, the rest of the personalised wall art is where I would look for the two pieces either side — and I would keep those two quiet, so the lettering stays the thing you read first.