The long and short of your child’s growth

Dr Naresh Shanmugam, paediatric-hepatologist, Global Hospitals, says that some term babies tend to be small, due to factors related to the mother during pregnancy. “These could be issues like hypertension, but such children usually catch up with age,” he says. 

He adds that the growth chart prescribed by the World Health Organisation can be a guiding tool to ascertain the child’s growth. He says,” Where the child stands in the centile as given in the growth chart is an indicator for any abnormality.” 

Malnourishment for long has been the biggest reason for the child’s slowed growth, but Dr Naresh says that that’s not the case anymore. “We need to look at any kind of syndromes that the child has been born with. Growth hormone issues also contribute to the problem,” he says. 

Dr Suba Karthikeyan, paediatrician-neonatologist, Motherhood, says that as against parent’s common notion, a chubby child is not always healthy. “I keep telling parents not to blindly follow the example of children you see in TV ads. They must understand that the child which is gaining weight at a considerable pace in the first one year, often slows down in the next two years. But he or she maybe 90 centimetres at 2 years, which is absolutely fine. Children have their own mind and cannot be force fed. If a 10-month-old baby eats two idlis, that doesn’t mean the child will eat more or at least the same quantity when he or she is one-and-a-half years old. Similarly, don’t compare their eating habits to that of adult’s. While we crave to eat, they eat only when they are hungry,” she says.

She adds that as long as the child is active and isn’t falling seriously ill every month, parents can be reassured that their child is doing good. “Every child is bound to have a cold and cough frequently. 

But if they are having frequent episodes of diarrhoeal stools, it needs to be investigated. One must also watch out for malabsorption. In such a case, children tend to fall ill persistently and appear dull,” she points out.

A growth chart is a tool used to assess whether your baby is growing and developing as he or she should be. Boys and girls have separate growth charts, because boys are on average slightly heavier and taller than girls, and their growth patterns are different.

It is the phase when parents are often on the tenterhooks— the neighbour’s 5-year-old is tall, while mine isn’t as tall as him. Dr Usha Sriram, director, ACEER, explains that it could be a problem with the development of pituitary. 

“The problem can be detected at the time of the birth, in case of a breech baby or when the baby has a micro penis. However, most often it happens that the parents suspect any abnormality only when the child starts going to school, as they observe other children in the same age group, who happen to taller then their wards. They only gain a few centimetres and this can affect the child’s self-esteem, especially in the teens,” she says. 

She further adds that the parents shouldn’t assume that the child is short because everyone in the family is short or due to genetics. “If they sense something amiss when the child is falling off the centile in the growth chart, they should immediately consult a specialist. Bone age can help in identifying the problem,” she adds.