Journal of Holistic Nursing and Midwifery (Apr 2005)
Comparing the growth of under 2 years old children referring to health centers of Bandar Abbas with NCHS standard curve
Abstract
Introduction: Assessing the growth and development of children is an important parameter in their health assessment. Since the growth effecting agents vary in countries, it is not sensible considering a unique growth chart for all. Objective: In this research we have studied the growth chart of children under 2 years old in BandarAbbas and compared it to standard NCHS growth curve. Methods: In this descriptive study, we have selected 1000 children from five health centers of BandarAbbas by means of simple randomized sampling. All data about children (height & weight) and their parents characteristics such as education and job were gathered and analyzed by means of t-test and ANOVA. Results: In contrary to height curve, the weight curve of children was below the standard level. A significant relationship has been observed between weight curve and parents education and fathers job, but mothers job does not have a significant effect on children growth chart. Conclusion: The weight gain pattern of children up to 24 months in Bandar Abbas differs from the standard and this difference widens in age 6-18 months and is affected by factors such as parents education and fathers job. Therefore, in attention to same timing of introduction of solid food and tooth budding with widening of children weight curve with standard curve, (all happens in 6 months age),more attention should be paid to feeding and proper health intervention to be conducted in order to control effective factors on children development.
