What is the average weight of early childhood

Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Like many parents, you might be wondering if your baby is growing normally.

Healthy babies can be a range of sizes, but the course of development tends to be fairly predictable. The World Health Organization has established standards for infant and child growth. Most full-term healthy newborns weigh anywhere from 5 pounds 11 ounces to 8 pounds 6 ounces 2. Low birth weight is less than 5 pounds 8 ounces 2. Many things can affect a newborn's birth weight.

They include:. Again, every baby differs, but here's what you can generally expect in the first 12 months of life. During the first few days of life , it's normal for both breastfed and bottle-fed newborns to lose weight.

However, within two weeks , most newborns regain all the weight they have lost and return to their birth weight. Most infants will gain about a pound over their birth weight by month one. At this age, infants are not as sleepy , they begin developing a regular feeding pattern, and they have a stronger suck during feedings.

On average, babies gain about one pound each month for the first six months. The average weight at six months is about 16 pounds 2 ounces 7. Between six months and one year , weight gain slows down a little. Most babies double their birth weight by five to six months of age and triple it by the time they are a year old. By one year, the average weight of a baby girl is approximately 19 pounds 10 ounces 8.

This growth chart is for healthy, full-term infants. A doctor may use specialized growth charts for premature babies or those born with special health needs. If you have concerns about your child's growth, you should contact your healthcare provider. Your child's doctor is the best source of information when it comes to your child's growth and development.

While it is normal for a newborn to lose weight during the first few days of life, after that period, weight loss or poor weight gain in a child is a sign of a problem.

In recent years, more children have developed obesity Obesity Obesity is excess body weight. Obesity is influenced by a combination of factors, which usually results in consuming more calories than the body needs. These factors may include physical inactivity Some children become obese at an early age. During the first year of life, an infant's weight and length are charted at each doctor's visit to make sure that growth is proceeding at a steady rate. Percentiles are a way of comparing infants of the same age.

Of more significance than the actual percentile is any significant change in percentile between doctor's visits. Available at www. Head circumference is measurement around the largest area of a child's head. Doctors place the tape measure above the eyebrows and ears and around the back of the head. This measurement is important because the size of the head reflects the size of the brain, and this measurement lets doctors know whether the child's brain is growing at a normal rate.

Head circumference is routinely measured until children are 3 years old. The timing of tooth eruption varies, mainly for hereditary reasons. However, tooth eruption may also be delayed by disorders such as rickets Hypophosphatemic Rickets Hypophosphatemic rickets is a disorder in which the bones become painfully soft and bend easily because the blood contains low levels of the electrolyte phosphate.

See also Introduction to Symptoms of hypopituitarism depend on what hormone is deficient and may include Facial expressions become dull, the voice Down syndrome is caused by an extra chromosome Group 3. Group 4. Group 5. Open in new tab. Adult body composition. Early Life Predictors. Table 3 Associations of length at birth, and changes of length in infancy, and in early and later childhood with adult body composition.

Figure 1. Open in new tab Download slide. Figure 2. Table 4 Associations of BMI and length at birth, and changes of BMI and length in infancy and in early and later childhood with adult body composition, in 87 persons with anthropometric data at birth, 1.

Early life predictors. Stunted child-overweight mother pairs: prevalence and association with economic development and urbanization. Google Scholar Crossref. Search ADS. A critical evaluation of the fetal origins hypothesis and its implications for developing countries. Google Scholar PubMed. The nutrition transition and its health implications in lower-income countries. Anthropometric indicators of body composition in young adults: relation to size at birth and serial measurements of body mass index in childhood in the New Delhi birth cohort.

Relation between weight and length at birth and body mass index in young adulthood: cohort study. Birth weight and body composition in young adult men—a prospective twin study. Rapid weight gain during infancy and obesity in young adulthood in a cohort of African Americans. Association between postnatal catch-up growth and obesity in childhood: prospective cohort study. Fetal, infant and childhood growth: relationships with body composition in Brazilian boys aged 9 years.

Associations between prenatal and infancy weight gain and BMI, fat mass, and fat distribution in young adulthood: a prospective cohort study in males and females born very preterm. Associations between prenatal and postnatal growth and adult body size and composition.

Infant and child growth and fatness and fat distribution in Guatemalan adults. Birth size, early childhood growth, and adolescent obesity in a Brazilian birth cohort. The human capital study — tracking, data collection, coverage, and attrition.

Anthropometric predictors of body fat as measured by hydrostatic weighing in Guatemalan adults. Children grow and horses race: is the adiposity rebound a critical period for later obesity? Body composition of Peruvian children with short stature and high weight-for-height. Implications for the interpretation for weight-for-height as an indicator of nutritional status.

Comparison of techniques to evaluate adiposity in stunted and nonstunted children. Abdominal circumference contributes to absence of wasting in Brazilian children. Issue Section:.

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In the current population-based longitudinal study, being overweight or obese in 8-year-old children was associated with a higher mean BMI throughout infancy and childhood, and was already recognizable at birth.

The first 9 months of life showed a marked increase in mean BMI in overweight and obese children, with a further separation from children of normal weight after 2 years of age. From 2 years and onwards, the ORs increased steeply, showing a strong association between a high or increasing BMI and being overweight or obese at 8 years of age.

The prevalence of being overweight at 8 years of age in this sample was According to the Norwegian Child Growth Study [ 24 ], the prevalence of overweight 8-year-old children in Norway increased between and , but in this seems to have reached a plateau, as reported in some other countries [ 25 — 27 ]. We found that a higher birth weight predicted being overweight at the age of 8 years, suggesting that prenatal development affects later childhood growth.

Similar findings have also been reported by Hui et al. Thus, there seems to be an association between birth weight, subsequent BMI and the risk of becoming overweight in children and young adults. Eriksson et al. Findings from a large cohort study of the impact of the intrauterine environment on later childhood adiposity suggested that the association between the BMI of the mother and her offspring could be explained more by shared familial risk factors rather than the intrauterine environment [ 30 ].

Whether this association is caused by intrauterine programming, by genetic factors, or is mainly a result of lifestyle factors operating in postnatal life has not yet been established [ 31 ]. The current data show that a rapid increase in the BMI during the first year of life, and especially between the ages of 6 and 9 months, significantly increases the risk of being overweight at 8 years of age Table 3.

Other authors have found similar results when studying weight gain in early childhood [ 13 , 14 ] and weight gain during adolescence [ 7 , 8 , 10 ].

In the current study, 8-year-old overweight children had an average change score between 9 and 12 months of age that was similar to that in normal weight children Table 2.

However, logistic regression showed that the risk of becoming overweight was significantly larger when the BMI increased particularly during this period Table 3 , change scores corrected for status. This apparently contradictory result possibly arose from the distribution of change scores: i. In the current study, children who were overweight at 8 years of age had already shown more rapid gains in their BMI at than normal weight children almost all ages of growth up to that age.

Although other studies have also highlighted the importance of early growth for the later development of being overweight and obese, the suggested critical time points have differed. Thus, de Kroon et al. In contrast, Stettler et al. Although our study showed that a rapid gain in BMI was a risk factor for being overweight at 8 years, we cannot confirm that this is the case for those who are overweight as adults. The relative risk of being overweight at 8 years increased with age according to the increase in BMI at specific target ages.

In our study, we found that the OR for being overweight at 8 years of age increased from 2 years and onward. Thus, having a high BMI at age 6 years had an extremely high association with being overweight at age 8.

Botton et al. In a recent study among overweight children aged 10—12 years, Harrington et al. Similarly, De Kroon et al. The average of nine measurements taken between birth and 8 years of age offered opportunities to study the potential of previous measurements to predict whether children would be overweight at age 8.

This implies that any tests of differences will be conservative, and might possibly underestimate the effects of BMI changes during periods in which fewer measurements are recorded [ 16 ]. A selection bias with regard to ethnicity cannot be excluded, as the majority of the children whose data could not be retrieved or who had fewer than three recorded measurements in the period were born abroad and had moved to Norway during the preceding years.

The results of this study suggest that a high birth weight and an increasing BMI are throughout infancy and childhood associated with being overweight at 8 years of age. Routine assessments of height and weight as well as recognition of excessive weight gain are essential to prevent the onset of being overweight in children, as parents do not always recognize their child as having a weight problem [ 33 , 34 ].

There is also a need for the development of universal preventive programs and resources in primary health care to deal with this public health challenge. Pediatr Dermatol. Article PubMed Google Scholar. N Engl J Med. Zwiauer KFM: Prevention and treatment of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents.