Interesting Find

While reading my nursing book, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (the new version) I came across some interesting information. The charts by the CDC for babies that are used by most doctors are based on formula-fed and breastfed babies. (They were recently updated and used to be based solely on formula-fed babies.) The WHO (World Health Organization) has charts based on exclusively breastfed babies. This difference is important because breastfed babies grow more quickly than most formula-fed babies at first and then taper their growth off as they get closer to one year so their 50%ile at one year is approximately 21 pounds and the CDCs chart 50%ile is 20 lbs.

I printed off the WHO charts from the internet, converted his measurements (the WHO charts use kg and cm) and filled in his numbers. This is what I found!

According to the CDC charts: (what the doctor uses)
For weight he was 25%ile at birth, 75%ile at 1 mo, and 95%ile at 2 mo.
For height he was 50%ile at birth 75%ile at 1 mo, and 75%ile at 2 mo.

According to the WHO charts: (for exclusively breastfed babies)
For weight he's approximately 50%ile at birth, 67%ile at 1 mo, and 67%ile at 2 mo.
For height he's approximately 40%ile at birth 50%ile at 1 mo, and 65%ile at 2 mo.

Notice the extreme difference in percentiles for his current weight! Almost 30 percentage points! I'm going to continue charting on the WHO charts and make sure that if there's an issue, the doctor understands it's because he has "bad" charts! Also notice that whereas with the CDC charts he "looked" like he was increasing weight at an other than ordinary pace (25-75-95), with the WHO charts he's stayed a lot closer to "average" (50-67-67) and actually didn't change percentiles at all from month one to month two!

Here's another interesting thing I just discovered. I went on the CDC's website to get a link for the charts the doctors uses (which I had downloaded a couple months before Benedict was born). They have new charts on the CDC's website that are made by the WHO but they are different from the exclusively breastfed charts from the WHO. According to these new charts, Benedict would be in the 92%ile for weight and 85%ile for length at 2 months. Just a little different, but different nonetheless.

Numbers, numbers, numbers! Are you confused yet?!