Abstract
SummaryStudies on the milk intake at 2 months of babies who were small-for-dates (SFD) and large-for-dates (LFD) at birth revealed that both classes of infant regulate their intake in accordance with a number of clearly defined measures. Milk intake per unit body weight per day at 2 months related not only to weight but also to weight-for-length and head-for-weight indices at 2 months in SFD infants. Proportionality changes between 2 and 12 months showed shifts which related to the birth-weight group, and to milk intake at 2 months within that group, in these infants. LFD infants showed a different pattern. Rather than changing their proportions they maintained them virtually from birth to 12 months. They demonstrated the phenomenon the authors have called ‘latitude’. This latitude was evident in their pattern of weight change immediately after birth, as well as in their milk intake at 2 months and their increase in size during the first year of life. SFD infants have much less latitude from the moment of delivery. The data converge on suggesting that homeorhetic control systems of growth and metamorphosis in the first year of life differ quantitatively and perhaps qualitatively between groups of infants of different shape and size at birth.Ethnic variation in birth weight is large. No standard formula can provide for the varying needs of infants within or between different groups. The practical implications of these studies are that, to attain optimum nutrition of the infants, it would be best to give optimum nutrition to mothers and to link this with a vigorous campaign for breast feeding. There are indications that breast feeding may have more advantages than previously discerned, such as promoting homeorhesis by allowing the infant to establish his own idiosyncratic supply of breast milk attuned to his individual needs.
Published Version
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