Chart Your Infant’s Growth
March 18, 2009
Watching your infant grow is an exciting process. Healthy babies grow and develop almost daily or weekly. At first, your newborn is completely dependent on you and their day revolves around eating and sleeping. Within a couple of weeks, you will see your infant communicate with you through facial expressions such as eye blinking or smiles.
As the infant continues to progress, they will begin to move their arms and bodies and make small noises to communicate. A child’s progress is usually broken down into a chart which analyzes and measures their developmental changes based on their age in months.
While development and progression is on an individual basis, these charts provide guidelines for actions that tend to occur within most children at specific age points.
Doctors use an infant growth chart to establish the child’s health. Their growth charts keep track of how the child is progressing both mentally and physically in comparison to other children in their age range. The growth charts monitor their length and weight as well as their interactive and communicative skills. These charts provide the basis for determining if a child is growing at the proper rate.
For instance, if an infant shows development in their motor skills at the times when they should be changing and learning more and then, for instance, they stop developing when they turn three years old, the doctor will know that the child is having a developmental problem. A child’s development is evaluated based on the growth chart as well as other factors, such as the genes the child has inherited from its parents and the environment that it is being raised in. Are the parents stimulating the child at home with sounds and images?
The physical aspects that a growth chart measures are the length of the baby, their weight and the circumference of their head. By using the infant growth chart as a guideline to monitoring your infant’s growth, you will be able to see if they are developing at the proper rate. Do not worry if your child is lagging in one aspect of the chart. Children progress at different speeds.






















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