How to Determine if Child Growth and Development are Normal?

How to Determine if Child Growth and Development are Normal?

During children's physical examinations, doctors mainly assess their growth and development based on measurements of height and weight. Height reflects skeletal development. Full-term infants have an average birth height of about 50 centimeters, around 75 centimeters at 1 year old, and on average, grow 5 to 7 centimeters each year, which falls within the normal range. True stunting refers to a height that is below 2 standard deviations or below the third percentile for the same age and gender. Ultimately, individuals with male heights less than 1.45 meters and female heights less than 1.35 meters are diagnosed with stunting. Weight reflects the overall development of organs, muscles, and fat. The average birth weight of infants is around 3000 grams, and they gain an average of 0.6 to 0.5 kilograms per month during the first year and 2 kilograms per year from ages 1 to 12. Weight below 15% of the normal standard is considered malnutrition, while above 20% is considered obesity.

The monitoring of children's growth and development should begin from infancy. Here are several methods to determine if the growth and development of infants under one year old are normal:

Monitoring the progress of child growth and development: To prevent early childhood growth and development delay, parents should pay attention to monitoring their child's progress in growth and development, such as weight and height gain, language and motor skills, etc. During the monitoring process, parents can observe the continuous emergence of movement and language skills in infants during the first few months after birth. At around 1 month old, babies start making sounds; at 3 months, they can lift their heads while lying flat; at 4 months, they can babble and engage in "conversations" with you, even laugh out loud.

An ideal way for parents to observe the growth and development of infants is to pay attention to these developmental milestones and important markers, such as when they begin to walk and talk. By comparing these developmental indicators of your little one with those of other children of the same age or larger twins, you can recognize their progress. However, remember that child development varies individually, and the time to meet the standard has a certain range. For example, some infants can start walking at 9 months, while others might take up to 14 months.

Identifying growth and development delays: How do you differentiate between normal child development and developmental delays? Generally, if a child meets the milestones of growth and development, it can be considered normal. However, growth and development delay refer to when a child's development fails to meet the normal lower limit of these milestones. Although infant development follows its own patterns, every child should reach certain standards at a certain age. These standards include various categories: gross motor skills, such as crawling or walking; fine motor skills, like stacking blocks and coloring; language skills, including speaking and comprehension; cognitive abilities; social skills, etc.

Here's a developmental milestones timetable. Child development might deviate from this timetable, but as long as the deviation is not significant, it falls within the normal range. If you are uncertain about the judgment, please discuss it with a pediatrician.

Developmental Milestones Timetable:

2 months: Smiles at sounds

3 months: Lifts head and chest while lying flat, can grasp objects with hands, enjoys imitating people

4 months: Makes cooing sounds, laughs, tries to mimic people's sounds

6 months: Can turn over, transfer objects with both hands

7 months: Responds to being called by their name, can find partially hidden objects

9 months: Can sit up independently, can crawl

12 months: Can walk with or without support, can say at least one word, imitates people's laughter

18 months: Can walk independently, drink from a cup, can speak at least 15 words

2 years: Can run, speak in short sentences, follow simple instructions, starts engaging in playful games

3 years: Can climb appropriately, speak in multiple sentences, categorize objects by shape and color

4 years: Can be with people outside the family, draw circles and squares, ride a tricycle

5 years: Can say their name and address, jump, dress themselves, count numbers (1 to 10)