Everything (in English) that you'd be able to wade through about the
WHO growth study, including the charts, can be found here:
http://www.who.int/childgrowth/standards/en/
There is an enormous amount of information here. The growth study
includes findings about how breastfed children grow, and the resultant
growth standards are contrasted with the old, population based growth
CURVES which are not the same thing. Too detailed to go into here,
check the site.
Remember that previous growth curves have been derived from an
unselected population and some have been constructed not by measuring
the same children many times and plotting curves based on each child's
pattern, but rather by weighing lots of children of different ages and
computing the mean, and standard deviations, for each age. There were
some breastfed babies and a lot who weren't, but they are not curves
showing how artificially fed children grow, nor how they outhg to
grow.
I used to suspect something amiss in any baby who gained less than
about 250 g/week but I have seen so many happy, thriving, GROWING
babies who just aren't that roly poly and heavy that I no longer worry
about it unless there are signs that something is wrong. Weight gain
is only a proxy measurement of growth, remember - weight gain is more
closely proportional to growth in young babies than it is in slower
growing organisms, but it isn't the same thing and some babies grow
without gaining weight at the standard rate of 30 g per day.
It was Elisabeth Kylberg, a Swedish nutritionist and IBCLC who opened
my eyes to the difference between the two when she asked 'Do YOU grow
when you gain weight?'
And who hasn't seen one of those babies growing like a weed, moving up
in clothing size every week, but not gaining weight 'fast' enough for
the health care providers?
It's handy to have a rough guideline, but there will always be a range
of normal values, for weight gain as well as weight, growth,
cheerfulness, whatever characteristic we are talking about. Some
people will have lots of it and some will have very little, and about
95% of people will fall within two standard deviations from the mean
population value for the characteristic, but very few, if any, will
actually fall right on the mean. We also need to be aware that daily
weight gain in excess of two standard deviations above the mean, or
below two SDs below it, is not in itself a sign of illness any more
than slimness or short stature are 'diagnoses'. It's just an unusual
value, and everyone monitoring the health of young children should
have a clear, evidence-based plan for how to distinguish a starving or
sick individual from a slower-gaining, healthy one.
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway
***********************************************
Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome
|
