Assessment of growth and development of under five children as per new WHO child growth standards

Abstract

Background : An quick and non-invasive procedure to assess the general health and well-being of the child is growth monitoring. In 2006 WHO published growth charts and these charts are now more frequently used to assess growth of children. These charts have also been adopted by CDC. The current study was planned to assess the status of growth of children in Haryana using these charts. Aims: To assess the growth and development of under five children as per new WHO growth standards in selected community of Haryana. Settings and Design : A descriptive design was used and study was conducted in rural and urban community of Ambala, (Haryana) to assess their Growth and Development. Material and M ethods: Total 140 under five children of conveniently selected setting were enrolled through door to door survey. Various checklists were used to ascertain competency of data collectors and inter-observer reliability was calculated and it was 0.82. Screening sheet, and growth and development assessment performa with growth charts were used to collect data. The anthropometric measurements were taken and recorded for all children. Statistical analysis: Data was analysed by using SPSS 17 (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) . Results : Most of the children were born between gestational age of 34-40weeks, and more than half were males. Related to initiation of breast feeding 73 (52.1%) of children were breast fed within one hour of birth. About introduction of solid food in more than half of the children it was started in age of 6-7 months. Half of the fathers were labourers, and all most all of the mothers were housewives. As per weight for age and length/height for age chart 61.4 of the children fell in -2 to +2 SD that is normal. As per indicator of acute malnutrition that is weight for length/height 54.2% of children were normal. Only 3.6% children were above 2SD for length/height and weight for age, rest other were below 2SD and were underweight, stunted and wasted as the related indicators. Conclusions: There is a need to implement education program for parents of children on nutrition as many children were at risk of both acute and chronic malnutrition and few were malnourished.