Monitoring Your Child's Growth

Monitoring Your Child's Growth


4 min read

By PediaSure®

Fact Checked by PediaSure®

05 01, 2024

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Key strategies for tracking child growth effectively

Importance of Tracking

Explains the importance of regularly monitoring a child's growth to ensure they are developing healthily and identifies potential concerns early.

Methods of Monitoring

Discusses various methods and tools parents can use to monitor growth, including growth charts and pediatric assessments.

Interpreting
Results

Provides guidance on how to interpret the data from growth monitoring, understanding what is normal and when to seek advice.

To keep abreast on your child's development, here's a guide on what you need to know to monitor his/ her growth.

Importance of measuring & monitoring child’s growth. Be Sure. Start Early.

Growth is an important indicator of your child’s overall health & nutritional status. Accurate measurement and regular monitoring of your child’s height & weight for age can help detect growth issues.

Poor growth may be an indication of medical conditions or nutritional deficiencies which can have lasting impact on his or her physical and mental development. It is crucial that we identify any growth issues and address inadequacies in his/her nutritional intake early to reduce negative impact on his/her growth and development. Start tracking your child’s growth now!

Importance of tracking height

Height gain is a sensitive indicator of nutrition intake adequacy for a child. A healthy gain in height:

  • Indicates that the body has adequate nutrients to successfully produce lean & skeletal tissue

  • Shows that body’s hormonal and metabolic functions are working efficiently, supporting the continuous growth of the brain and the skeletal system.

Is Your Child Growing to His Potential?

Children of tall parents tend to be taller than children of the same age whose parents are short. But a child who is short and has very tall parents may not be achieving genetically expected height. You can determine whether your child is growing

Calculate mid-parental height

  • For boys: add 13 cm to the mother’s height, and average this with the father’s height

  • For girls: subtract 13 cm from the father’s height and average this with the mother’s height

Evaluate your child’s height

  • On the growth chart, follow your child’s current height-for-age percentile to obtain projected height at 18 years of age

  • If the difference between the calculated mid-parental height and the projected height at 18 years is ≤ 8.5 cm, your child’s current height is appropriate for his genetic potential.

Check out the growth calculator too to discover your child’s potential height at 18 years old and know if your child is on track! Also, monitor your child’s weight and height by tracking growth percentiles regularly with this tool, to ensure you are supporting your child’s nutrition to achieve growth potential.

The science of growth – Complete, balanced nutrition to support growth & immunity

Until the end of adolescence, a child undergoes rapid physical and cognitive development and this needs to be supported by adequate nutritional intake. Ensuring that your child has a complete, balanced diet then becomes crucial.

Consider the use of a complete, balanced oral nutritional supplement.

Oral Nutrition Supplements (ONS) may help plug nutritional gaps in children with suboptimal growth or poor dietary habits like picky eating. An ideal oral nutrition supplement (ONS) should be high in energy and nutrient-dense to plug nutrition gaps and support catch-up growth*. ONS is a convenient nutrition solution to help deliver complete, balanced nutrition and a range of essential micronutrients to your child’s diet without compromising on taste. It is also a more advantageous option compared to conventional sweetened beverages which tend to be less nutrient dense.

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