Growth Flashcards
Respiratory Rate and Heart Rate (2)
- Should be counted for a full minute with child calm and at rest
- Each degree of Farenheit increases the HR 8-10 beats/minute (apical HR and degree of fever should correlate)
Blood Pressure (2)
- Have patient raise their arm if it’s too quiet to hear the BP with their arm down
- There is increased BP in taller children, males, and older children
Head ultrasound
Non-invasive way to evaluate head changes in first year of life when fontanel is still present
*Tells you whether or not child’s ventricles are normal or if there is external hydrocephalus, which will cause increased growth
Weight-for-age (4)
- Reflects body weight relative to age
- Influenced by recent changes in health or nutritional status
- NOT used to classify as under or overweight
- Used in early infancy for monitoring weight and helping explain changes in weight-for-length and BMI-for-age in older children (BMI is done at 2 years and older)
Stature/length-for-age (2)
- Linear growth relative to age
- Used to define shortness or tallness
* Be sensitive to cultural differences, may be at lower percentiles in certain cultures but doesn’t mean there is a problem
BMI-for-age (3)
- Antrhopometric index of weight and height combined with age
- Used to classify children and adolescents as underweight, overweight, or obese
Weight-for-length/stature
Reflects body weight relative to length and requires no knowledge of age; indicator to classify infants and young children as overweight and underweight
*For birth-3 years old
Head circumference-for-age
Critical during infancy and can be charted up to 36 months (3 years old)
*measurements reflect brain size
Primary microcephaly vs. Secondary microcephaly
Primary: occurs before birth, in utero (ex: Zika)
Secondary: occurs after birth; could be due to injury
BMI-for-age percentiles: obese, overweight, underweight
Obese: Above 95th percentile
Overweight: Between 85th and 95th percentile
Underweight: Under 5th percentile
Weight for length/Stature percentiles: obese
Above 95th percentile
Stature/Length-for-age: short stature
Under 5th percentile (usually familial)
Head circumference-for-age: developmental problems
Less than 5th percentile or above 95th percentile
*Being micro or macrocephalic puts you at risk for developmental delays
BMI (4)
- Body fatness changes as children grow
- BMI declines and reaches a minimum around 4-6 years of age before beginning a gradual increase through adolescence and most of adulthood
* Increase in body fat that occurs earlier on puts child at risk for obesity - BMI is NOT a direct measure of body fatness, but it parallels changes obtained by direct measures of body fat such as underwater weighing and DXA
- BMI can be considered a proxy for measures of body fat
Small for gestational age (SGA)
A birth weight and/or length greater than 2 standard deviations below the mean
*Below the 10th percentile in weight, length, or head circumference
Large for gestational age (LGA)
Greater than 2 standard deviations in weight and/or length
*Birth weight, length, or head circumference lies above the 90th percentile for gestational age
Mid-parental Height Calculation in girls
*Determining heights of girls by the heights of biological parents
(Father’s height + Mother’s height - 5 inches) / 2
*If doing it in centimeters:
(father’s height - 13cm) + mother’s height / 2
Mid-parental Height Calculation in boys
(Father’s height + Mother’s height + 5 inches) / 2
*If doing it in centimeters:
(father’s height + 13cm) + mother’s height / 2
Statural growth
A process that is determined by the interaction of genetics, nutrition, and socioeconomic factors
History taking for growth: maternal pregnancy
Emphasize medications used, infections, and nutrition during pregnancy
History taking for growth: perinatal history
Emphasize duration of gestation, perinatal information, growth (weight and length)
- Need to know if child was SGA, AGA, LGA
- Perinatal history may point in specific pathologies, such as hypopituitarism or hypothyroidism
- Birth measurements reflect intrauterine conditions
- Duration of gestation determines pre or post maturity
History taking for growth: growth pattern in first 3 years
Establish a pattern of growth! Many children have catch-up or catch-down growth between 18-24 months of age. Growth rate percentile shifts linearly (up or down, depending on parents heights) until the child reaches his or her genetically determined growth channel or height percentile
*Patterns of growth are established in first 3 years of life, which are all about nutrition
History taking for growth: growth patterns after 3 y/o (3)
- Emphasis: prepubertal and pubertal growth velocity
- Most children with normal growth usually do not cross percentiles after two years of age
- Peak height velocities typically occur at Tanner stage III in girls and IV in boys
History taking for growth: family history
Know father’s height and age during pubertal growth spurt, mother’s height and age at menarche, heights of siblings, grandparents, etc., and medical conditions of family members
*Heights of parents determines heights of children and follow parent’ pubertal tempos
History taking for growth: ROS
Energy level, sleep pattern, headaches, visual changes, diarrhea, etc. to evaluate functional capacity of various body systems
*Also want to know social history; growth can be affected by stress (ex: psychosocial dwarfism)
Dysmorphology/Dysmorphic features
Looks at face, hands, and feet
Confounding factors: Obesity (4)
- Obese children are taller
- With endocrinopathies, height is impaired (they will be shorter)
- If the child’s height is at or greater than mid-parental height, an endocrine cause of the obesity is likely
- Obese children go into puberty earlier and as a result end up being shorter
Genetic Channeling
- Upward to downward movement towards mid-parental range
2. Usually accomplished by 12-15 months
Constitutional Growth Delay Risk Factors (6)
- Family history
- The child is healthy, growing below but parallel to the 3rd percentile line
- Between 6-24 months, the linear growth and weight track downward to the 3rd percentile
* Linear growth slows and they wind up with growth spurts that are lower than normal - Slow growth rate between 12-30 months
- Delayed onset of puberty and growth spurt and usually end up with heights in lower half of the normal range
- Bone age that is delayed by 2 or more years
Confounding Factors in Late Childhood Growth (4)
- Infrequent measurement opportunities
- Normal prepubertal growth deceleration
- Effects of medications for common disorders (ADHD, asthma, depression)
- Normal variation in onset of puberty
Key Information Required to Decipher a Child’s Growth Curve (6)
- Birth length and weight (SGA vs. prematurity)
- Mid parental height
- Family growth and pubertal history
- Growth rate-normal for age?
- Bone age (Left wrist)-contributions of delayed vs
genetic/intrinsic growth disturbance - Health history – effects of disease on growth
Bone Age
Bone age is a measure of skeletal maturity.
A conventional X-ray of the left hand and wrist to evaluate bone age may be obtained at the initial visit to assess skeletal maturation, and may be repeated over time if needed
Skeletal Maturation
- Occurs under the influence of estrogen, thyroid hormone, androgen and growth hormones
- Bone age is generally more than 2 years in advance of chronologic age in longstanding precocious puberty because of the action of sex hormones
Sexual Maturity Rating: Males and Females
Males: size of the testes and length of the penis
Females: breast development and pubic hair development
Body Fat (3)
- Continually increases in girls during most of
the second decade, while boys tend to decrease fat
after age 14. - In the lower ranges, BMI-for-age tends to increase
more slowly in both adolescent boys and girls. - At the 5th percentile, BMI-for-age increases at the
rate of about 0.5 unit/year during most of the second
decade.
Thelarche
The appearance of breasts in girls; the earliest signs of pubertal development in 85%
Pubarche
Pubic hair growth in females; the initial pubertal sign in 15% of girls
Puberty in Females (5)
- Menarche occurs an average of 2 years after thelarche
* Range 1-5 years - Peak height velocity is reached at l2 years in girls immediately prior to menarche
- Usually if you start to see feet growing, breast budding is coming
- Tanner II stage girls develop body fat and need cholesterol for estrogen to cause breast buds to occur; should be a little rounder/chubby
- Between the age of 12 and 13, girls at the 5th percentile gain less than 8 lbs. while those at the 95th percentile gain more than 13 lbs.