New Growth Charts from WHO

I don’t know about you, but I am continuously monitoring my child’s progress and asking other mother’s when their children reach certain milestones: when did she walk? When did he talk? How much do they weigh? Any slight discrepancy and I’m jumping onto my laptop to find out just what the “norm” for children my son’s age is.

What is Normal?

Truth is, there are many different “norms” for all children since we all develop at different rates – which we as parents, of course, KNOW. Yet we are still concerned when our child seems slightly behind in ANY aspect when compared to his or her peers, and are particularly alarmed when they fall behind any milestone that we see on our doctors’ growth charts.

My son is a breastfed baby who, when compared to formula fed babies at 6 months of age, seems to be quite a bit smaller. He also appeared to be a lot leaner and shorter, which somewhat concerned me. Was he developing at a normal rate or not?

Thank goodness the World Health Organization (WHO) released brand new growth charts for children aged 1 to 5 that consider breastfed children to be the “norm” for measurements as opposed to formula-fed babies. Before the WHO released these, I found myself constantly comparing my son to formula-fed children, which of course was not very accurate (especially during the earlier years).

Things that Influence Growth

The in depth research and new charts provided by the WHO also take into international standards, rather than just North American babies. They discovered that children who are provided similar conditions in early life then also have similar growth patterns. Growth is influenced by these four things more than genetics or ethnicity:

• Nutrition
• Feeding Practices
• Environment
• Health Care

Ruling out heredity allows practitioners to address health issues such as obesity and slow weight gain in children at an earlier age. The new Body Mass Index (BMI) standard for children up to five years in age which was just released with these new growth charts helps in determining weight and underlying health issues.

Other growth charts now readily available to you included:

• Windows of Achievement Standard (an outline of the six key motor development milestones)
• Weight-For-Age
• Length/Height-For-Age
• Weight-For-Length/Height

Check them out! See where your little guy or gal falls. And remember – some children walk at 7 months and some children don’t crawl until they are over a year old. If you have any pressing concerns about your child’s development, visit your health practitioner for further guidance.

photo by Josephine Carino