Growth Charts

[Amanda3266]

Okay - here's a challenge to all you brilliant Mumsnetters?

Why do some babies start off on one centile then suddenly and dramatically drop to another?
A few babies coming to my clinics (I'm a HV for anyone who doesn't already know }are doing this at present. In all the cases we've got I think it's entirely normal - with one baby I know her big sister did exactly the same. All are developing normally and seem (apart from one) to be eating well. I have no concerns about any of them (and neither have the parents) but just wonder why some kids do this.

I'm looking elsewhere to see what I can find as well - but just interested in what other people thought. Did your child do this? The babies seem too well to have any kind of growth disorder. My opinion at present is that they are just variations of normailty - we all develop at different speeds and that sometimes this fluctuates. However, I know some of my colleagues fret much more about this type of thing.
I know some of the older charts reflect bottlefed babies - our new ones (in the last 4 months) don't - they are based upon breastfed babies.

What did your babies do?
Mine started off on the 50th centile - went above the 99.8th centile by 6 months and then with crawling and walking went back to the 50th and now doesn't move from there.

Mandy

Thanks Amanda - just looked on the growth chart in her red book and she is on 98th centile line for both height and weight. Am interested to know how much activity a 2 year and 9 month old should be doing a day. We're out morning and afternoon at playgroups/friends' houses/playgrounds/swimming but is hard in winter to do as much running round. Thanks again, Dinny

Amanda, you sound like a great HV. When a (dragon) HV was giving me a hard time about ds dropping in weight I quoted her some of the info on Kellycom and she told me I should take no notice of what I read on the internet! I queried the red book charts being for bottle fed babies and again she brushed me off.

I did end up complaining to my named HV about the dragon though. Here's why. Ds has always been a great sleeper and was sleeping through when he 'dropped'. Dragon told me that some women set their alarms for the middle of the night, wake up and have something to eat so that they have 'good milk for the morning'!! I can laugh about it now but at the time I was really upset. The clear implication was that I should do the same and there I was with a baby that was sleeping through and I'm supposed to have a midnight feast. Managed not to cry infront of her but got home and howled down the phone to dh who thought something grave had happened as I was incoherent. Named HV was great and really helped keep me on course as I was all set to stop bf as I felt such a failure.

Ds is 14 months now and the picture of health. He self weaned from the breast at just short of 12 months which was a complete shock. Bothered me more than him. I'm going to download those charts that kara mentions and plot him and see what it shows.

I am so pleased to have been of some help.

I also find La Leche League website (sorry, I am rubbish at doing links here) very good.

But really kellymom.com is amasing. Ps - I receive no payment from that site for advertising it . It's American which is why not many UK women know about it. Oh, and it has a silly name. Who would guess it had anything to do with scientific info. on breastfeeding with a name like that ?

I forgot to mention to everyone that if you look at kellymom.com apart from the charts, you can look at a table for weight (in kilos as well as pounds) which indicates approx. how much weight a bf baby should be gaining in its first year of like.

So, say a baby my DS age (now just over 7 months), should be gaining between 2-4 oz per week. That's not much. It should give bf mothers alot of comfort and boost their morale .

my dd started off on the 50th centile then went up to the 99th centile around 6 mth and has stayed there through crawling and everything, she is on the same centile for height too she is 12 mth now and is walking.

forgot to add she was bottle fed, and also had alot of problems feeding, she was lactose intolerant until 6 mth but still kept gaining the weight xx

thanks karaj am going to that site now!

Dinny, how can your child be overweight if she is on the same centile for height AND weight?? It's like saying that because a 5'2" man would be obese at 12 stone, a 6'4" man would be obese at the same weight! She is clearly perfectly and entirely in proportion. Your SIL should shut her trap, IMHO.

DS was born on the 75th centile, but he was 10 days late and there had been a query over whether I had gestational diabetes when I was about 32 weeks pregnant.

He dropped from 8lb 10oz to 8lb, then gained copious amounts of weight - 9 or 10oz a week until he was about 4 or 5 months old. He wasn't 'weaned' until he was 6 months old, and even then we were very baby-led and just gave him food to play with really.

He's very good at feeding himself now (he's 10 months on Thursday) and he's still breastfeeding several times a day (and occasionally at night - I'm with Mears on not bothering to wean babies off breastfeeds at night if it gets them back to sleep - LOL!). He eats quite a lot and looks pleasingly plump, but not podgy. Had him weighed for the first time since the end of Nov (which was his 8-month check - hadn't had him weighed since about Aug before that) and he's now between the 9th and 25th centiles.

All I'm interested in when I have DS weighed is how much he actually weighs. When the HV comes over to me with her 'concerned' face on, I'm not interested (as at the end of Aug when DS had dropped an ounce in a fortnight - big wow - perhaps had he not weed everywhere just before I'd put him on the scales and done a mammoth poo that morning, he'd have been 4oz up!). She always points at his 'line' as though I'm forgetting to feed him or something. But he's slowly gaining weight, meeting his milestones, etc.

I just asked her if she'd seen the Observer article about breastfed babies not gaining weight in the same way as formula-fed ones and she withdrew (think she remembered I didn't take any sh*t!) and said 'Ooh, yes, you're a lucky baby, having all this healthy stuff' to DS (She hadn't seen the article...)

Yes, Aloha - was thinking the same. How can she be on the same centile for h and w and yet too heavy? Can she be "too tall"!!

Hello! Yes, it's been a nightmare week. DH back tomorrow THANK GOD. ps dad not coming up Monday now (Mum escaping asap!) so fancy doing something?

Growth charts Harrumph. Another way to make mothers feel inferior. You know if your child is losing weight, changing shape. My son was huge and in 99 centile at birth. He is now 115 centile for height and over 100 for weight. He's not fat, and very tall. HV said maybe i should think about gigantism as being a potential problem. When I told her the story of my friend 50 years ago who is male and only 4feet 4 who had the "hormone" injection for gigantism, she shut up. My friend was really really tall for his age, got the hormone at 10 years and is now way way below average. Using common sense is the best measure.

Some really good points here. Am amazed by the worries some of your HV's have given you all. What is the matter with them?

I've always said (and I know) that true growth disorders are rare so I get very annoyed by the anxiety these charts can provoke. Suspect that , as someone said earier, many HVs and some GPs just do not understand statistics and the variations in normality. I certainly don't think I'd suspect any problem if the baby seemed otherwise well and Mum and/or Dad was happy. Too much can be made of these charts.

Mandy

Just checked DS on the kellymom breastfed from birth chart and he's between the 25th and 50th on there. Almost tempted to go and see wishy-washy HV again with that info (almost...not quite!).

(Hi Dinny hun )

! I also have a real problem with growth charts, or rather the way in which they are interpreted. Both my breastfed DD's have apparently been affected to my absolutely horrendous parenting skills it would seem . DD1's BW was 7lb but she plateaued to below the lowest centile for weight. She was even admitted for a possible NG tube. After a considerably heated discussion with hospital staff (I did not agree with their intention to possibly force feed her to make her as heavy as they thought she should be - no other good reason, she may have been extremely slim, but she was happy and healthy with it!) I left the same afternoon with her in my arms to the Senior House person shouting down the corridor after me "IT WILL GO ON YOUR DAUGHTERS MEDICAL RECORDS THAT YOU HAVE REMOVED HER FROM THIS HOSPITAL AGAINST MEDICAL ADVICE!!". [SAD] [ANGRY]! Anyway, she is still below the lowest centile (2yrs9mths), and still very happy and healthy! On the other hand, DD2 (born at 6 and a half lbs) at 4 months is in 9 - 12 month clothes, she too is extremely happy and healthy .

I find it outrageous that for the first year or two children are 'meant' to be chubby, yet within another year or two the pressure is on to slim them down again! Poor wee mites.

One thing I had thought may possibly cause a difference in gains is whether babies are weaned using jars or fresh homemade foods? Are jars more rich in calories than plain old mashed/blended veg? Probably, but I'm not sure! Is there any correlation between formula = jar use or breastmilk = homemade?

I have a further point about charts (this is a great thread ). That is to do with genetic and racial factors.

Do the current "red book" charts allow for differences in nationality, race or genes ?
I suspect not.

So, what if you are an immmigrant to the UK, i.e what if you and DH are not tall, white, Caucasian, Europeans ?

I am only 5.2" and my DH is 5.7". We are both Caucasian whites, but not European. So there is no way I would expect our baby to fit a chart that probably only shows averages for a white European whose ethnic origin is English, Irish, Scotish or Welsh.

My baby is never going to be as tall or as heavy as a European child.

I think this is an important factor to keep in mind if you are from one of the UK's ethnic minorities.

So apart from the wonderful quote "look at the baby NOT the chart" perhaps we should also add "look at the parents AS WELL AS the baby" .