Importance of Growth Monitoring by a Health Checkup in Detecting Growth Disorders in Young Children
Journal Title: Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research (BJSTR) - Year 2018, Vol 11, Issue 3
Abstract
Normal growth is a sign of good health and well-being in children. Assessment of height and weight is the best indicators of child’s growth as well as general heath. Abnormal growth may indicate malnutrition or the existence of underlying disease in children [1]. Some developing countries where most of children suffer from malnutrition resulted in abnormal growth. Early detection of growth failure can contribute to increase utilization of a health service resulted in improved nutritional status, reduced morbidity and reduced mortality [2]. On the other hand, in developed countries, the aim of growth monitoring is to identify children with various treatable causes of abnormal growth, who have been missed or who failed to present in clinical practice. A review of 31 studies of growth monitoring demonstrated that a single height screening could identify between 1:545 and 1:1793 new cases of potentially treatable children [3]. Despite its widespread use, the importance of growth monitoring in detecting growth disorders and its impact on child health is not well recognized [4]. Besides, even if growth monitoring is performed, children with treatable causes of abnormal growth are frequently diagnosed or treated at an inadequate older age, and they might not achieve normal or near normal height [5,6]. Some children are unable to get routine growth checkup at schools by staffs who are lacking in recognition of significance of growth monitoring [7]. Yardeni showed that adherence to guidelines for evaluation of growth failure in the primary clinic referring children to a specialist, a pediatric endocrinologist, was inadequate; children were frequently referred without data on previous growth, parental height and crucial laboratory data indicating physician’s evaluation at primary care was lacking [8].Health checkups, performed at public health centers (for 3-, 6-, 18-, and 36-month-old infants), nursery schools, kindergartens and primary schools may be the best opportunity for recognizing early childhood health problems such as psychomotor-development delay and growth retardation [9-11]. In Japan all young children have opportunity to get these health checkups covered by a governmental charge. In the health checkups, we measure children’s heights and weights overtime and evaluate the pattern of growth by plotting of heights and weights on the growth curve. A single height/weight measurement only identifies children whose height/weight is outside the normal range for their age.
Authors and Affiliations
Remi Kuwabara, Tatsuhiko Urakami
Keywords
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- EP ID EP592369
- DOI 10.26717/BJSTR.2018.11.002094
- Views 163
- Downloads 0
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