>I'm very interested in knowing about the growth charts for exclusively
>breastfeed children.

These are under develoment by the World Health Organization, and are
expected to be completed by 2003.

>The clients that I have been helping are coming up against the "old" chart
>standards.

The old charts are not based completely on formula-fed children, some of
those children were breastfed.  They are perfectly fine IF you use them
correctly.  The new charts will be no better if people misuse them as much
as they misuse the current charts.

> Being that they are still fairly medically minded they are
>querying if they should be supplementing with solids and or supplements.

This depends entirely on the specific situation -- size and growth patterns
of the parents, growth pattern of the child to date, weight vs.
length/height, and head circumference, health and happiness of the child,
motor and speech development of the child.

Usually, children will let you know if/when they want to eat solids.  If we
are talking about a child under 6 months, then the breastfeeding needs to be
assessed -- there are many reasons why the mother might not be making enough
milk, or the child might not be effectively getting the milk out of the
breasts, and there are also reasons why the child might not be growing as
expected even though taking in plenty of milk (heart defects, cystic
fibrosis, mosaic Down Syndrome, etc.).  "Breastfed baby growth charts" will
not be the solution is any of the above are the problem.

Kathy Dettwyler

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html