In plain words
The WHO growth standards are charts that show how healthy babies and young children grow. They cover weight, length, and head size from birth to five years. Pediatricians plot a baby's measurements against them to see whether growth is steady. The charts were built from breastfed infants in several countries, so they describe a typical pattern rather than one ideal size. A single measurement matters less than the pattern across visits. Your pediatrician will explain what your baby's line on the chart means for her.
The deeper version
The WHO Child Growth Standards (Multicentre Growth Reference Study Group, 2006) are prescriptive rather than descriptive: they describe how children should grow under optimal conditions, based on a sample of breastfed infants from Brazil, Ghana, India, Norway, Oman, and the United States. They replaced the 1977 NCHS reference for infants and young children in many settings, and the CDC recommended the WHO charts for children under two in the United States from 2010. Growth velocity and the trajectory across percentiles carry more information than any one value. Controversy remains about the use of standards designed for optimal growth in populations where many children grow more slowly for social reasons.
Where it comes up
- Pediatrician visits in the first weeksBaby Basics
- Is my baby getting enough?Feeding Your Baby
- Growth spurts and feeding changesFeeding Your Baby
- Starting solids around six monthsFeeding Your Baby
What mothers here say about WHO growth standards
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Sources
- WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study Group — WHO Child Growth Standards: Methods and Development, 2006
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — Recommendations on use of WHO growth charts for children under two, 2010