Abstract
OBJECTIVES:Growth velocity is an important factor to monitor for appropriate child growth. This study presents the growth velocity of infants based on length, weight, and head circumference.METHODS:The subjects of this study were 308 neonates (160 boys and 148 girls) born in West Azerbaijan Province of northwestern Iran who were followed from birth for 4 years. The weights and lengths of the subjects were recorded at birth, 1, 2, 4, 6, and 9 months, and 1, 1.5, 2, 3, and 4 years of age, while the head circumferences were measured just up to 1.5 years of age. In this study, the Lambda-Mu-Sigma (LMS) method using LMS Chartmaker Pro (Institute of Child Health, London, UK) was utilized to obtain growth velocity percentiles.RESULTS:After obtaining growth velocity charts for weight, length, and head circumference (5th, 50th, and 95th percentiles), the researchers could deduce that there was a sharp decrease in the velocity growth charts from birth to 2 years of age but these charts remained relatively stable up to 4 years for both sexes. Growth velocities for the length and weight of boys in the present sample are slightly but not significantly greater than those in girls through the first months of infancy and there was no significant difference between girls and boys up to 4 years.CONCLUSIONS:This paper provided the first local growth velocity standards of length, weight, and head circumference for infants by analyzing longitudinal measurements produced for West Azerbaijan Province, which should be updated periodically. It seems that there has been a significant difference between the growth velocity of infants in northwestern Iran and southern Iran within the past few years.
Highlights
Growth is one of the human body’s most complex processes
The current study is longitudinal and includes measurements of weight, length, and head circumference of 308 healthy neonates (160 boys and 148 girls) who were randomly selected in a multistage sampling procedure from the nine counties (Urmia, Miandoab, Takab, Khoy, Mahabad, Bukan, Poldasht, Chaldoran, Salmas) of West Azerbaijan Province in 2008 and followed from birth until the age of 4 years at the health centers
Infants were visited at various target ages and their weight, length, and head circumference were measured by train ed health staff members
Summary
Growth is one of the human body’s most complex processes. Monitoring health status, detection of growth failure, and Received: Jan 23, 2015, Accepted: Jun 11, 2015, Published: Jun 23, 2015 This article is available from: http://e-epih.org/. Determining the efficacy of interventions for a population can be performed by assessing the physical growth of infants and young children [2]. Monitoring physical growth and development is an important component of primary health care in pediatrics [3]. Anthropometric measurements are important indices of health in children and the most appropriate way to evaluate the nutritional and general health status of a community [1,3]. Height, and head circumference are the most commonly measured parameters of infants’ physical growth [4]
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