Use of New World Health Organization (WHO) Growth Curves 2006 in the Evaluation of Growth Faltering, an Overview from Gabon
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- Category: Vol. 78, March 2010
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Use of New World Health Organization (WHO) Growth Curves 2006 in the Evaluation of Growth Faltering, an Overview from Gabon,DINA I. SHEHAB, GULSEN SALEH, ZEINAB BAKRY and ABD EL-HADY ABBAS
Abstract
Background: Although the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reference has been widely used, in 2006 the World Health Organization released new standards for assessing growth of infants and children worldwide.
Objectives: To assess and compare the growth of breastfed Gabonian infants based on the new WHO child growth stan-dards and the NCHS reference.
Subjects and Methods: The analysis of this article draws on data for 200 infants, 100 per each sex, who were longitu-dinally monitored from birth to 12 months of age in a primary health care center at Libreville, the capital of Gabon at West Africa. Weights and lengths of infants were measured monthly and anthropometric indices were calculated using both WHO standards and NCHS reference. The growth pattern and esti-mates of undernutrition based on WHO standards and NCHS reference were compared.
Results: The mean birthweight was 3,020±433g, with 11 % weighing <2,500g. The mean birthlength was 49.5±1.9cm. The growth pattern of gabonian infants more closely tracked both standards in the second half of first year. The rates of stunting and underweight based on the WHO standards were significantly higher than the rates based on NCHS throughout the first 9 months.
Conclusions: Results of this work speaks more with use of WHO standards for assessing the growth of infants in developing countries in general as NCHS reference misiden-tifies undernutrition and may not adequately reflect the growth of breastfed infants. Gabonian infants, in particular, need more investigations for growth assessment during first 6 months as data showed a special pattern that deviate markedly from both national growth curves as well as reports from various countries. This could have implications for planning nutritional programs.