The growth chart : A tool for use in infant and child health care

Abstract

This book presents a growth chart for children which can be used as a simple and inexpensive means of monitoring child health and nutritional status. It can be readily utilized by community health workers with little instruction and supervision. The chart represents a convenient means of presenting basic health data and permits the assessment of current status as well as the observation of trends in growth. Being essentially visual, the chart also provides the health worker with a useful instrument for educating the mother and family. It promotes a clearer understanding of the nature of growth and development, and portrays clearly the consequences of an inadequate diet and of infectious diseases. In this way it contributes to a greater acceptance of responsibility for child care by the mother and to the concept of family self-reliance in health matters. The publication describes the principles of growth monitoring and stresses the need for each health service to develop monitoring methods and a growth chart appropriate to the communities served. Several examples are given to show how this has been done in various countries. Guidelines are also given on training community health workers to fill in the chart and to interpret the growth curve correctly. This publication will be useful to those planning and managing child health and growth monitoring activities