<The old growth charts were NOT solely based on artificially fed babies. This is a persistent myth on Lactnet. It makes me buggy that Lactnetters perpetuate this myth. Pat in SNJ< Pat, I would like to refer you to a article in Pediatrics "Time for a New Growth Reference". Vl. 100 No 5 1997. It states that the National Centre for Health Statistics (NCHS) growth charts for children under 2 years of age came from the Fels Longitudinal Study from 1929 to 1975.--"the Fels curves reflect the growth of children who were fed primarily infant formula and in whom complementary feeding was often initiated before 4 months". As a result there is concern that NCHS curves are inappropriate for healthy breast fed infants. The article goes on to say that infants who are fed according to WHO recommendations deviate significantly from the NCHS reference. The chart was so faulty that it caused health workers to m ake faulty decisions regarding the adequate growth of breastfed infants. The difference between the words "solely" and "primarily" are a mute point and the essential fact is that that the primary mode of nutrition was formula in these infants. As a result there was an urgent need to do new growth charts so breast fed infants growth patterns were accurately charted on appropriate charts. Marian Rigney RN _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp *********************************************** 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