But don't panic about your 6-month-old's chubby thighs. Your baby's weight does not predict future obesity unless it is radically out of proportion to his height. And no matter what your baby weighs, never restrict his food intake; he needs calories and fat so his body and brain can grow. Your baby may have also been uncharacteristically big if you suffered from gestational diabetes.
But once he's out of the womb, genetics take over, and unless he's got supersize parents, he'll show his true growth patterns between 9 and 18 months. Conventional wisdom holds that a baby's height, weight, and head circumference should be in the same percentile.
While that's often the case, don't fret if your baby's percentiles seem out of whack. During a growth spurt , a baby's length may shoot up, or he may gain weight quickly, causing his growth-chart percentiles to diverge.
Of all your child's organs, her brain grows most rapidly, with the head expanding right along with it. That's why your pediatrician so conscientiously measures head circumference — to ensure that the brain is developing properly.
One way to tell that a baby is significantly undernourished is that she stops gaining height and weight, while her head continues to grow at a normal rate the body automatically reserves calories for all-important brain growth.
If a baby's head seems particularly large in relation to her height and weight, the doctor may measure the parents' heads, since this characteristic runs in families. Although babies born preterm before the 37th week of pregnancy are small at birth, they grow faster than full-term newborns — most likely because they're completing what would have been their in-utero growth.
By 2, most premature babies have caught up with their full-term counterparts. But there are exceptions. Being a multiple or being extremely premature, for example, can affect a baby's future size, says John Walburn, M. Your doc will discuss strategies to improve his diet. Failure to thrive can also indicate an infection, hormonal issues, an allergy, or a chronic disease such as diabetes, so if your child is dropping weight, consult your pediatrician.
Kids need rest to thrive; their body releases growth hormone during sleep. But even if your child refuses to nap or wakes often at night, he's likely getting enough sleep to grow. If your child is a snorer or a mouth breather or pauses in his breathing when asleep, tell your doctor. These are signs of sleep disordered breathing, a treatable condition affecting about 20 percent of kids.
If she is eating a balanced diet, your child probably doesn't need a multivitamin. Regardless of whether your child is in the 95 th or 15 th percentile, what matters is that she or he is growing at a consistent rate over time. This can help your doctor find and address any nutritional, developmental or medical issues. A dramatic change, such as a drop from the 50th percentile to the 5th, for instance, would be a red flag.
If your daughter is in the 10th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for height, your pediatrician might monitor her nutritional intake more closely. For instance, if both parents are relatively short, it makes sense if your child is on the shorter side. Each child is unique. Read More. If you have reached this screen, your current device or browser is unable to access the full Edward-Elmhurst Health Web site. To see the full site, please upgrade your browser to the most recent version of Safari, Chrome, Firefox or Internet Explorer.
If you cannot upgrade your browser, you can remain on this site. Back to Healthy Driven Blog Home. When your child comes in at the 10th percentile, it's really no better or worse than coming in at the 90th. What we care about most is the trend at which your baby or child gains weight, height, or head circumference. After age 2, you can use the growth chart to expand between the ages of 2 and In addition to weight and height at that point, we also look at body mass index , that number where we try to capture how children's proportionality is.
Are they at risk for overweight or are they too lean? Everything from genetics , to environment, to nutrition , to activity , to health problems really influence how your child grows.
Why we review it each time is to talk about threats to your baby's or child's health and ways that you can take great opportunity to make changes. When you're looking at a growth grid, what you want to focus on is how your child is changing. One static point on the growth grid isn't as relevant as 5 data points over time. You want to know rates at which your baby or child is growing and the rate compared with the grid.
As you follow the grid along from infancy into toddlerhood, you'll notice that each time it will rise. Each data point at each set of time will increase. We care about the rate at which your baby or child grows, not the number. Parents often come in to the office and say, "What percent is she at? Don't focus on the number. Have your pediatrician, family doctor, or nurse practitioner help you understand what the trends are for your baby's growth.
Parents, pediatricians, and nurses have been using growth charts since the late s to track growth in infants and children. The charts were revised back in as data for the first charts from a small study in Ohio didn't accurately reflect the cultural and ethnic diversity of our communities. The hallmark of a well-child check is the review of a child's growth.
Growth can be a reflection of a child's overall health, nutrition, or tolerance of possible underlying medical conditions. So understanding what your doctor or nurse practitioner says about your child's growth should be a priority. If your doctor doesn't have a computer in the examination room, ask to see the chart on paper or on a computer in the office.
It will not only inform you, I suspect it will delight you to see what your child has done since the last time he was seen. The human body really is a fine-tuned machine, and growth is simply astounding if you really stop to think of it.
It's true your baby will at least double his weight by 6 months and triple it by about 1 year of age. If you have a challenge understanding how your child is growing or how the growth chart is presented, demand clarification.
It's OK if you don't understand the presentation of facts on these grids; have confidence to speak up and ask the doctor or nurse practitioner to explain it.
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