The WHO growth charts (babies from around the world fed according to WHO recommendations of 4-6 months of exclusive bf followed by up to two years and beyond of continued bf, plus appropriate solids) will be available in 2003. Until then, the best charts to use remain the ROSS/WHO/CDC/NCHS charts, which are all the same, and are based on a combination of breastfed and bottlefed children from the US. The CDC has made some revisions to their charts, and those are availabe on the CDC web site. There are lots of archival posts about growth charts. Remember that growth charts are *supposed* to be used to evaluate groups of children, not individual children, and that how a child's growth charts on the graph tells you almost nothing about its health and development. Children do not necessarily stay at the same percentile across their childhoods -- you can have children that start big and then 'catch down' or that start small and then 'catch up'. Some children have a growth spurt in mid-childhood, from about 4-6 years, while others do not. Some grow very fast in the first year and then hardly at all from 1 to 3. Others start out very small and slow growing and then grow quickly as toddlers. All sorts of patterns are within the range of normal. As health care professionals, you should be evaluating not just growth in weight, but growth in length/height, arm circumference, head circumference, motor/cognitive/language development, temperament, and health. Using "new and improved" growth charts, theoretically or actually based on all breastfed children, instead of the old Ross/WHO/CDC/NCHS based on a combination of breastfed and bottle-fed children, will not solve the problem of misinterpreting the pattern of growth relative to the charts, or over-reliance on a single measure (weight-for-age) in the assessment of children's health. Kathy Dettwyler _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com *********************************************** 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