The Trouble with Growth Charts
Growth charts can help track a child's physical development, but they aren't foolproof.
And how your child measures up to them is only part of his or her health picture. In fact, height and weight tables were never meant to be used to diagnose growth problems. Still, by attempting to adhere to charts used before 2000, which were based entirely on formula-fed babies, parents may have been misled into overfeeding their infants. That's the conclusion of a recent European study.
Today's growth charts include breastfed babies and so are more accurate than those used in the past. But they are still only one of several tools pediatricians use to evaluate a child's health. "Just as important is what the baby looks like and the rate of his or her growth," says Jennifer Trachtenberg, MD, author of Good Kids Bad Habits: The RealAge Guide to Raising Healthy Children. "What you don't want to see is a baby drifting too far up or down, especially if he or she is already at either end of the percentiles. That's a red flag signaling that a doctor needs to further evaluate the child," she says.
