Baby Growth Charts Are Excellent Tools For Doctors And Parents

Baby Growth Charts Are Excellent Tools For Doctors And Parents

By:


Child growth charts are designed to give parents and pediatricians a
way of plotting the growth of an infant, from birth to adulthood.
There are several different growth charts available as a reference
point, from charts for babies to charts for toddlers and older
children. Percentile growth charts include graphs to monitor height,
weight, and body mass index.

Why are growth charts such an important tool?

Growth charts can provide a point of reference for monitoring your
childs growth. Keeping a check on your childs growth rate at regular
intervals will ensure that any potential problems are flagged up
sooner rather than later, thus enabling you to seek medical advice if
you suspect your child is not growing at the normal rate for his or
her age.

Girls and boys are measured using different growth charts because they
have different growth patterns and cannot be compared. There are also
special growth charts available to chart the growth of children with
particular medical conditions, including Downs Syndrome.

How do doctors decide what is normal for a particular age group?

Growth charts use measurements taken from thousands of children over a
period of time. These statistics have been used to determine the
average height, weight, and body mass index for children in any age
group. The percentile curves on growth charts are there to show you
where your childs measurement is compared to others in his age group.
However, it is important not to get too hung up on these measurements
as a child in the bottom 5% of his age group might easily be as
healthy as a child in the 95% range.

Is there an ideal percentile for children?

In a word, no, there is not an ideal percentile growth line for any
child. Children are individuals and they all grow at different rates.
As long as their growth rate is regular and they do not deviate from
their plotted growth line, they are likely to be perfectly healthy.

How can growth charts signal problems?

If a child suddenly deviates from a growth pattern they have been
following since birth, it could be an indication something is wrong,
although it is not unusual for kids to show some fluctuations in
growth from time to time. Gaining weight at a different rate to an
increase in height could also be an indication of problems, although
if the pattern is regular, this could be considered perfectly normal.


About the Author:
Allen B is the owner of http://www,infantweight.com. We offer free infant growth charts for parents to use to keep check their baby's growth patterns



Article Originally Published On: http://www.articlesnatch.com


|

Loading...
Related....
Videos...

Recent Babies-Toddler Articles

Comments

Still can't find what you are looking for? Search for it!

Loading

Copyright 2005-2011 ArticleSnatch, LLC - All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy | Terms of Service.