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Key practice: Monitoring growth and development of the child
Ensure the child is growing well
Why is it important?
Growth monitoring is important as it starts right from when the child is born and the parents/ caregivers should be encouraged to do the following:
- Attend regular growth monitoring and promotion sessions (GMP) to make sure the baby is growing well.
- Take the baby for growth monitoring and promotion every month during the first year.
- A healthy child who is growing well should gain weight every month. If your child is not gaining weight or is losing weight, there is a problem. S/he should be taken to the nearest health facility for treatment immediately.
- Attending growth monitoring and promotion sessions can help identify nutrition problems your child may have, such as severe thinness or swelling. Nutrition problems may need urgent treatment.
- During growth monitoring and promotion sessions parents/caregivers can ask questions about their child’s growth, health and nutrition.
Benefits of monitoring the growth and development of the child
- Weight gain is the most important sign that a child is healthy and is growing and developing well.
- A health check-up can also detect if a child is gaining weight too fast for his or her age. This requires examining a child’s weight in relation to his or her height, which can determine if the child is overweight.
- If the child is underweight or overweight, it is important to examine the child’s diet and provide the parents or other caregiver with advice on good nutrition.
- Every child should have a growth chart that tracks his or her growth. It shows whether the child is growing appropriately for his or her age. At each weighing the child’s weight should be marked with a dot on the growth chart and the dots should be connected.
- A child who is not gaining enough weight over one or two months may need larger servings, more nutritious food or more frequent meals. The child may be sick or may need more attention and care or assistance with eating. Parents and trained health workers need to act quickly to discover the cause of the problem and take steps to correct it.
A young child should grow and gain weight rapidly. From birth to age 2, children should be weighed regularly to assess growth. If regular weighing shows that the child is not gaining weight, or the parents or other caregivers see the child is not growing, something is wrong. The child needs to be seen by a trained health worker.
