Study Of Growth Pattern In Varanasi Infants And Its Comparison With Reference Standards
Abstract
Background: The present study involves an investigation of the growth and development of infants during the first year of life. It attempts to compare the observed physical growth of infant with recommended standards and other studies carried out on Varanasi infants.
Methodology: Sample of 200 infants (104 males and 96 females) at age group 3-12 months were taken from the paediatrics Out Patient Department (OPD), Sir Sunderlal Hospital, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi. General information were recorded with the help of pretested questionnaire from the mother/guardian of the infants and body weight and length of the infants was recorded by standard techniques (Jelliffe, 1968). The results were compared with reference standards such as World Health Organisation (WHO), National Centre for Health Statistics (NCHS) and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and the other studies on Varanasi infants.
Results: The 50th percentile value curves of both weight and length of male and female infants run below the 50th percentile of reference standards but they run parallel to other studies of Varanasi. It shows that from last several years the growth pattern of the studies on Varanasi infants were almost same.
Conclusion: It is concluded that before declaring our infants as malnourished through comparing with reference standards even if the developmental milestones of the infants were normal, they were having no any past history of diarrhoea or respiratory diseases and fever, further researches should be done to know how far these standards are applicable on infants in various states of India where the racial and cultural differences are one of the major factors. Therefore regional and state wise standards should be constructed.
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PDFCopyright (c) 2016 Mishra Anjali, Chakravarty Archana, Mishra OP
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