Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast. My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about growth charts.

And if you want to follow along with written notes on this topic, you can follow along at zero tofinals.com slash growth charts or in the development section of the Zero to Finals Pediatrics book.

So let's get straight into it.

Growth charts are used to plot a child's weight, height and head circumference

against the normal distribution for their age and gender.

The child's measurements are plotted on the graph using a dot.

The age is plotted on the x-axis and the weight, height and head circumference is plotted on the x-axis, and the weight, height, and head circumference

are plotted on the y-axis. Growth charts have curves that indicate the normal distribution of

growth over time. Centiles, remember that cent means 100, indicate where a child's growth

compares to the normal distribution for their age

and sex. It's important to use the chart that matches the sex of the child as growth is different

between boys and girls. To illustrate how centailles work, consider these examples. If a child

is on the 50th centile, she is basically exactly average height for her

age. If another child is on the first centile, he is shorter than 99% of children his age. If another

child is on the 91st centile, she is taller than 91% of children her age.

The important thing when assessing a child, where there are concerns about them not gaining

height or weight, is to establish whether they're maintaining their centile.

If a child is on the 9th centile, but they've always been on the 9th centile, that is much less concerning than

a child that previously was on the 91st centile and is now on the 9th centile. Let's talk about

plotting growth charts. Plotting growth charts is a common exam question and a very common

task for any doctor working in pediatrics.

It's important to practice this skill.

...