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Growth centiles could be misleading

Growth tables used to chart a baby's development may be inaccurate, research by the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests.

The study found the centile charts may over-estimate how quickly babies should put on weight which may have caused unnecessary concern for breastfed babies, who gain weight more slowly.

The child development growth charts in widspread use are largely based on studies of formula fed children from more than 20 years ago.

While it is widely accepted that breast milk provides babies with the best possible combination of nutrients, formula fed babies put weight on more quickly and because of this, the charts appeared to suggest that many breastfed children were failing to thrive - even after just two or three months.

The WHO study of 8,440 children from six countries, found that target weights for two and three-year-olds were 15 to 20 per cent too high.

The charts suggest healthy one-year-old weighs between 22.5lb (10.2kg) and 28.5lb (12.93kg), when in fact the true healthy weight is 21lb (9.53kg) to 26lb (11.79kg), they say.

The researchers say the current overfeeding of babies could explain in part why this generation of adults is the fattest ever.

The WHO will release new growth charts based on breast-fed babies at the end of the year.

Researcher Dr Mecedes de Onis said: "The new standards provide a much better description of the physiological growth and they establish that breast fed infants are the biological norm.

"Paediatricians will be able to congratulate parents on having exclusively breast fed their infants instead of spending time as they do now in trying to reassure them that the apparent growth faltering of the baby is not a reason for concern and is due to the imperfections of the growth charts that are being used for their growth."

Dr Prakash Shetty, head of nutrition planning at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, said the new recommendations mean that daily energy intake for babies should be about 7 per cent less than current levels.

"If you look at the requirements of these children who are exclusively breast-fed, their requirements of energy are much lower that those of formula fed infants."

Where to next?

• Are we overfeeding our children? Share your views in Discuss, Debate and Deliberate