Study of growth parameters in healthy children 0-24 months in an urban set up

INTRODUCTION: Physical growth is, from conception to maturity, a complex process influenced by environmental, genetic, and nutritional factors. Normal growth is a strong indicator of nutritional sufficiency and overall health of an infant. Since infancy is a period of rapid growth, particularly early infancy, identifying growth failure is important and requires prompt medical attention. AIM OF THE STUDY: 1. To establish standards for height, weight, head circumference and mid arm circumference of children between 0-24 months in urban set up. 2. To compare the growth curves obtained with the standard- WHO Charts. METHODOLOGY: Design: Cross sectional survey. Sample size: After analyzing previous studies and consulting with statistician the sample size for study was detected to be 896. Settings: 1. Well baby clinics and immunization clinics at Institute of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Kasthuri bai Gandhi Hospital and institute of child health and hospital for children. 2. Babies attending cretches. Duration of study: October 2008 to August 2010. Sampling technique: Stratified random sampling. Study population: Healthy babies aged between 0 months to 24 months of both sex. Inclusion criteria: 1. Term baby, 2. Babies with birth weight more than 2500 gm, 3. Those babies with valid birth data. Exclusion criteria: Babies with any chronic illness and those with major congenital Anomalies. CONCLUSION: 1. 50th percentile values for weight, length, head and mid arm circumference were comparatively lower than the WHO standard. 2. Since WHO standard is based on ideal condition of baby growth including breastfeeding as biological norm, this is not the case in developing countries. 3. Use of local standards on regional basis avoids overestimate of under nutrition. 4. Continuous efforts to collect data for growth parameters in a nationwide approach should be made to provide assessment of optimal growth potential. 5. It has been noted during our study that only 15% of babies were exclusively breastfed till 6 months, 50% of babies were predominantly breastfed and 35% of babies were on artificial feeds. 6. About 36% of mothers started weaning by 4 months. 7. The most common food used for weaning was cow’s milk (50%), followed by formula feed (30.5%). 8. The most common mode used for weaning babies is bottle feeds (65.5%) followed by palada (25%). 9. Most of the mothers have completed higher secondary (49.3%) and 16.7% of mothers were graduates