Child growth charts

About child growth

Children’s growth is a sign of their overall health and nutrition.

All babies and children grow at different rates, and there’s a big range when it comes to ‘normal’. Your child’s growth is unique for him or her, and usually follows a pattern that’s right for him or her.

At home with your baby, you’ll know whether she’s growing. You’ll notice her getting too big for her clothes, bassinet, baby bath or other things that seemed enormous when she was just a newborn.

What are growth charts ?

Growth charts are used by health professional and parents to track your child’s growth and development in the early years. Your child’s growth is calculated based on the World Health Organization‘s growth standards. These standards represent the best description of physiological growth for all children from birth to five years of age and is based on data from 8500 children from around the world, including Europe. The Z-scores or standard deviation scores is the unit used for measuring the children’s growth.  These units tell us how far your child’s growth measurement is from the average.  

Growth charts are graphs that show changes in your child’s length or height, weight and head circumference over time. Your health professional – for example, your child and family health nurse – measures these things regularly and marks the measurements on the graph. It is best to input these measurements into the cell phone application to also have the growth curves of your child’s handy and recorded with you.

There are different growth charts for boys and girls, for younger children and older children.

Understanding child growth charts

Growth charts have lots of lines (curves) on them that show the range of typical child growth patterns at different ages. 

Most children’s lengths, weights and heads are somewhere between the top and bottom curves on the charts. Half of all children grow at a rate above the middle of the typical range, and half grow at a rate below this range. The limit values are arbitrarily determined and there are two standard deviations (SD) or Z scores above and below the average value for age.

Sometimes children’s individual growth curves cross over curves on the chart. If this happens with your child, your health care professional will closely monitor your child’s growth over the next few appointments. Your child’s growth might get back on track on its own, or your health professional might suggest some things you can do to help.

• If the value of the child's body weight in relation to age or body weight for body length / height is below -2 SD, it is considered that the child is moderately wasted or thin, and if it is below -3 SD, it is considered to be severely wasted or thin,.
• If the value of the child's body weight in relation to age or the value of body weight for body length / height, in the field between +2 and +3 SD it is considered that the child is overweight and if it is in the field above + 3SD that he is obese.
• If the value of the child's body length / height in relation to the age is below - 2 SD, it is considered that the child is stunted. Stunting is the result of chronic or recurrent undernutrition, usually because of poor nutrition/feeding practices, micronutrient deficiencies,  frequent illness or repeated illness over a period of several years.

How child growth is measured

Length is measured when your baby is lying down. For children over two years, height is measured when they’re standing up.

For children under two years, weight is measured without clothing on a special infant weighing scale. After two years, weight is measured in ‘light’ clothing on a regular set of scales.

Head circumference is usually measured by putting a tape measure around your baby’s head. Babies’ heads grow rapidly in the first year, which makes it easy to check that that they’re growing in a healthy way.