The relationship between the infant percentile and the child's health

Sometimes parents become obsessed with the percentile of their child's weight and height as if the growth curves were a straight line from which they could not get out. However, there are many factors that lead to the small fluctuate around them without posing a medical problem. In this article we a

Sometimes parents become obsessed with the percentile of their child's weight and height as if the growth curves were a straight line from which they could not get out. However, there are many factors that lead to the small fluctuate around them without posing a medical problem. In this article we are going to demystify these happy percentages.

The child percentile is only a fact

Weight and height are just numbers. The first thing to keep in mind is that a growth curve is one more way to assess the health of the child and not the only one that indicates whether he is well or poorly nourished. In addition, no curve can be equated with the actual development of a person because these data are the result of adding and obtaining the average of the weights and sizes of many of them.

An isolated percentile does not indicate anything, but how many small weigh or measure, more and less, than he does within the set of healthy children of his age. For example, if a baby's weight is at 15 it means that 15% of the others who are healthy weigh less than that percentage.

The 3rd percentile of weight and height is usually used as the absolute warning limit. In these cases, pediatricians do recommend studies to rule out possible diseases. Although, this data only shows that 3% of healthy children have a weight or a size below this figure and do not have to have any pathology.

Although it seems common sense, the obsession of some parents makes them forget that genetics also determines what the child is like. The most common is that the constitution of children is similar to that of their parents. So, sometimes you just need to be aware of each person's physiognomy.

The child's growth can fluctuate

During his growth, a child can accelerate or slow down his weight or height increase without involving a medical problem. In fact, babies fed only breast milk slow their weight around 4-8 months, settling around the 50th percentile, without involving any kind of disease.

From birth to 2 years, the weight, height and percentile of small children are monitored in all controls, although there is no study that has proven that weighing and carving is good for anything. In addition, in Spain these tests are added the handicap that most children, including those exclusively breastfed, are classified with growth tables that are based on data obtained from children's food with artificial milk . Leaving aside this important sanitary gap, the fundamental thing is to know how to correctly interpret, and within each context, what these data indicate.Obviously, if a child continuously goes down the percentile from a certain time must perform medical checks. For example, some can not digest artificial milk or gluten well and begin to slow down their growth even if they do not vomit, have diarrhea, or have skin rashes.

However,

an isolated percentile drop does not mean anything . It is necessary to make a good clinical history in which it is necessary to take into account the age of the child, if the nursery has started, has had a little brother, eat less because it is very hot, has had an infection or gastroenteritis, among other factors.But most importantly, it's how the child looks in general. You have to be aware of whether you are active, happy, if you play as usual and if you are interested in food. That is, you have to make a global assessment within your own circumstances.

Susana Torres.

Collaborator of Guiainfantil.com and lactation consultant