Abstract
The present paper presents the first clinical standards for growth velocity in height of Belgian boys and girls, based on purely longitudinal data. Growth charts are provided with centiles of height for age, along with the growth velocity curves of the typical early, average and late maturing child in the population.
These new growth velocity standards provide centile lines which allow to judge whether a child's growth velocity over a one-year interval lies within the limits of normal variation for his age, irrespective of his stage of maturation. They also provide information about variability in the individual patterns of growth velocity in the population and can, as such, also be used to evaluate the normality of a child's pattern in growth velocity over a longer period of time. Age at peak velocity occured in 95% of the children within an age range of about 4 years. The average age at peak height velocity at puberty was 14.0 years (S.D.=1.0) in boys and 11.6 years (S.D.=0.9) in girls. Peak height velocity was in the average 9.1 cm/year (S.D.=1.4) in boys and 7.5 cm/year (S.D.=1.1) in girls.
The representativity of these new standards with respect to the actual Belgian population was tested by comparison with recent cross-sectional data, collected on a large number of subjects. These new charts will find useful applications in longitudinal health screening surveys, and in clinical follow-up studies, where interest lies in the examination of a child's growth retardation in relation to some disease, or catch-up growth, as a response to subsequent medical treatment.
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Hauspie, R.C., Wachholder, A. Clinical standards for growth velocity in height of Belgian boys and girls, aged 2 to 18 years. Int. J. Anthropol. 1, 339–347 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02442063
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02442063