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Assessing for faltering growth in infants and children

26 September 2019
Clinical
02 September 2019
Volume 28 · Issue 17

Childhood is a time of rapid growth and advances in development, with infancy (birth to 2 years) and puberty providing more velocity of growth than in any other stage of child or adult life.

Growth in children is one of the most important characteristics of wellbeing. Optimal growth signifies adequate nutrition, health and development (Secker and Jeejeebhoy, 2007; Goulet, 2010; National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), 2017). Growth refers to the height and weight of a child in relation to their chronological age.

When children fail to grow within expected ranges for their age over a period of time this is referred to as faltering growth (Ryan, 2013; NICE, 2017). NICE (2017) stated that for growth to be recognised as faltering from the normal ranges for a child, there needs to have been a failure in growth rate over a period of time that has resulted in a fall of at least two centiles on the World Health Organization (WHO) (2006) growth charts. The only exception is for children above the 90th centile where a fall of three centiles is required before faltering growth is suspected.

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