Jeanne Sager has written an interesting Babble article called "Off the Charts: Why some pediatricians are abandoning percentiles" about how American growth charts overseen by the CDC have been thrown out of whack by the obesity epidemic, and how they weren't all that hot to begin with because they weren't based on the best standards of care, like the World Health Organizations were. So, it turns out that a baby's being in the seventh percentile for weight or height doesn't always indicate a "failure to thrive," as some parents have been told.
Today, many pediatricians are moving away from quoting the CDC percentiles to their patients, in part because parents tend to get competitive and to see them as test scores -- when, in fact, being in the top 1% of American children for weight isn't necessarily a good thing. And there are better indicators of a problem than where a child falls on a chart.
Our wonderful pediatrician never quotes percentiles to us. When we asked one time if he could guess how big our son would grow to be, he just said, "as big as he's meant to." Wise words.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. My 6 month old grandson is in the 7th percentile in weight and the 37 percentile in height. His pediatrician is concerned about his weight but is not calling it "failure to thrive"-yet. The baby is just small built like his father and like his mother. His development is completly on track-even advanced in some areas. He's happy, has only been sick once, eats and drinks when he needs and wants to.He grows 2-3 inches between check ups but only gains 1/2 to 1 pound in the same time frame. I see nothing wrong with him.
Sharon at 5:20AM on Jun 2nd 2008
2. Of course they're out of date....they were useless ten years ago, I can only imagine how inaccurate they are now.
Strados at 11:32AM on Jun 2nd 2008
3. Pediatric RN for almost 30 years - percentiles were never meant for parents to use them as bragging rights, they were meant for statistical purposes only. There are actually several different charts - one is just for premature babies so that they don't get labelled "small" when they are actually appropriate for gestational age. Practitioners are taught to ignore every thing except the top and bottom 5%, and the abnormal things, like having a head circumference that is too large for age, weight and height, which could indicate water on the brain or a skull deformity. I would only be concerned about a baby being "failure to thrive" (FTT) if it's height and weight were below 5% for age, and you have to factor in gestational age and the size of the parents. As long as adequate calories are being consumed and the baby is healthy, there is probably nothing to worry about. The true FTT infants I have seen were grossly neglected (feeding the infant diluted formula to save money) or the parents were misinformed about infant nutrition (one mother had her 9 month-old daughter on low-fat everything, she only weighed 11 pounds - infants need their fats for adequate brain growth as neuro tissue is made of lipo-proteins).
Sarah at 9:56PM on Jun 2nd 2008