# Infant growth monitoring

Care topic · id `maternal:infant-growth-monitoring` · Maternal & Newborn Atlas · release `c7fb95f1d15a7d13` (public)

> General information from published sources, not medical advice, and not reviewed by clinicians. Check the cited source before relying on anything here.

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Browse, life stage: Infant follow-up  
Browse, care area: The baby's first year  

## In plain language

Clinicians use growth charts to see how a baby or young child is growing. In the United States, CDC advises clinicians to use the WHO growth charts for children younger than 24 months. The WHO charts are growth standards: they show how healthy children grow when conditions are good, and they were built from healthy breastfed infants and young children. CDC says slower growth among breastfed infants at ages 3 to 18 months is normal, and that weight gain faster than the WHO charts show might be an early sign of overweight.

## Technical summary

This page rests on CDC's 2010 advice (MMWR Recommendations and Reports, read as the PubMed abstract) and the WHO tool page; the growth standards and the study behind them have their own pages. The CDC advice is a recommendation record and a claim on the page for the growth standards. CDC says the WHO charts describe weight for age, length for age, weight for length and body mass index for age as the CDC charts do, and advises the 2.3rd and 97.7th percentiles to screen for possibly abnormal growth. The CDC report has a published erratum that was not read. No growth reference values or percentile tables are recorded here. The recipient is the child; the charts are used by clinicians.

## Claims, with the population each applies to

## Context: Children younger than 24 months in the United States (CDC 2010 growth chart advice)

Recipient: Child; Population: Children in the United States younger than 24 months, for whom CDC advised the 2006 WHO growth charts. The same advice keeps the CDC growth charts for people aged 2 to 19 years, who are outside this context.; Care setting: Clinical settings in the United States where clinicians assess growth (the abstract addresses clinicians).; Geography: United States (CDC advice for US clinicians); Life stage: Infants and toddlers, from birth to younger than 24 months; Gestational age: Not reported; Postnatal age: Not reported; Follow-up: Not applicable (advice about which growth charts to use)

### In 2010 CDC recommended that clinicians in the United States use the 2006 WHO international growth charts, rather than the CDC growth charts, for children younger than 24 months, and keep the CDC growth charts for people aged 2 to 19 years. WHO's tool page presents the WHO Child Growth Standards and says they were developed using data from its Multicentre Growth Reference Study.

- Category: Recommendation
- Evidence stage: Guidance
- Certainty: Certainty not assessed
- Applies to: Recipient: Child; Population: Children in the United States younger than 24 months, for whom CDC advised the 2006 WHO growth charts. The same advice keeps the CDC growth charts for people aged 2 to 19 years, who are outside this context.; Care setting: Clinical settings in the United States where clinicians assess growth (the abstract addresses clinicians).; Geography: United States (CDC advice for US clinicians); Life stage: Infants and toddlers, from birth to younger than 24 months; Gestational age: Not reported; Postnatal age: Not reported; Follow-up: Not applicable (advice about which growth charts to use)
- Limitations: This restates, on the topic page, the CDC advice recorded in full on the WHO growth standards page (see that claim for the details and the erratum). Only the PubMed abstract of the MMWR report and the WHO tool page were read. PubMed links a published erratum (MMWR Recomm Rep. 2010 Sep 17;59(36):1184) that was not read; a published correction exists and whether it changes this claim is not known.
- Last checked: 2026-10-15
- Source problem: a cited source is corrected. Check the sources before relying on this claim.
- Sources:
  1. Supports: Use of World Health Organization and CDC growth charts for children aged 0-59 months in the United States (Publication, edition PubMed record (abstract and bibliographic data) from NCBI E-utilities. The full text and the version of record were not fetched. PubMed lists a published erratum (MMWR Recomm Rep 2010 Sep 17;59(36):1184) that has no PubMed number; the correction was not read, so this snapshot is marked corrected.) <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20829749/>
     Locator: Abstract, sentence 6, fragment 1 of 2. Retrieved 2026-10-15T13:48:53Z. Source state: Corrected. Snapshot hash: 0a80e64e3f31ea2f2929545f783353427095c945b2d79f443d9ddeb790bfc1e7.
     How it applies: PubMed abstract.
  2. Supports: Use of World Health Organization and CDC growth charts for children aged 0-59 months in the United States (Publication, edition PubMed record (abstract and bibliographic data) from NCBI E-utilities. The full text and the version of record were not fetched. PubMed lists a published erratum (MMWR Recomm Rep 2010 Sep 17;59(36):1184) that has no PubMed number; the correction was not read, so this snapshot is marked corrected.) <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20829749/>
     Locator: Abstract, sentence 6, fragment 2 of 2. Retrieved 2026-10-15T13:48:53Z. Source state: Corrected. Snapshot hash: 0a80e64e3f31ea2f2929545f783353427095c945b2d79f443d9ddeb790bfc1e7.
     How it applies: PubMed abstract.
  3. Supports: Use of World Health Organization and CDC growth charts for children aged 0-59 months in the United States (Publication, edition PubMed record (abstract and bibliographic data) from NCBI E-utilities. The full text and the version of record were not fetched. PubMed lists a published erratum (MMWR Recomm Rep 2010 Sep 17;59(36):1184) that has no PubMed number; the correction was not read, so this snapshot is marked corrected.) <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20829749/>
     Locator: Abstract, sentence 7. Retrieved 2026-10-15T13:48:53Z. Source state: Corrected. Snapshot hash: 0a80e64e3f31ea2f2929545f783353427095c945b2d79f443d9ddeb790bfc1e7.
     How it applies: PubMed abstract.
  4. Background: Use of World Health Organization and CDC growth charts for children aged 0-59 months in the United States (Publication, edition PubMed record (abstract and bibliographic data) from NCBI E-utilities. The full text and the version of record were not fetched. PubMed lists a published erratum (MMWR Recomm Rep 2010 Sep 17;59(36):1184) that has no PubMed number; the correction was not read, so this snapshot is marked corrected.) <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20829749/>
     Locator: AuthorList, collective name. Retrieved 2026-10-15T13:48:53Z. Source state: Corrected. Snapshot hash: 0a80e64e3f31ea2f2929545f783353427095c945b2d79f443d9ddeb790bfc1e7.
     How it applies: PubMed abstract (context for the claim).
  5. Background: Use of World Health Organization and CDC growth charts for children aged 0-59 months in the United States (Publication, edition PubMed record (abstract and bibliographic data) from NCBI E-utilities. The full text and the version of record were not fetched. PubMed lists a published erratum (MMWR Recomm Rep 2010 Sep 17;59(36):1184) that has no PubMed number; the correction was not read, so this snapshot is marked corrected.) <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20829749/>
     Locator: CommentsCorrectionsList, ErratumIn, RefSource. Retrieved 2026-10-15T13:48:53Z. Source state: Corrected. Snapshot hash: 0a80e64e3f31ea2f2929545f783353427095c945b2d79f443d9ddeb790bfc1e7.
     How it applies: PubMed abstract (context for the claim).
  6. Supports: WHO Child Growth Standards (who.int tool page) (Webpage, edition The tool page as shown on 2026-10-15. The page carries no edition date; it links a press release of 27 April 2006.) <https://www.who.int/tools/child-growth-standards>
     Locator: Overview, paragraph 1, sentences 1 and 2. Retrieved 2026-10-15T13:49:52Z. Source state: Current. Snapshot hash: f97e12dcb12ed9c44b78a51efc67d090b094545798834faeea2433af45529693.
     How it applies: WHO publication or tool page.

## Connected pages

- Growth after a small birth (existing page): Low birth weight (`maternal:low-birth-weight`)
- Care of babies born early or small, from birth to 24 months (care topic): Care of the preterm or low-birth-weight infant (`maternal:preterm-lbw-care`)
- Filed under this front: Care programmes and follow-up (`maternal:front-care-programmes-and-follow-up`)
- Related to: Reading path: your baby's first year (`maternal:reading-path-first-year`)
- Investigated in: WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study (MGRS) (`maternal:who-mgrs`)
- Recommended for this: WHO Child Growth Standards (`maternal:who-child-growth-standards`) [a claim, not a settled fact; see claim `maternal:claim-cdc-2010-who-growth-charts` and its context]

## Provenance

Content hash: 16c79089a9e48aa2bbfb5d140d3e4a8c444aafdea54dba71a43920e0deaabde8
Last substantive edit: 2026-10-15
Evidence last checked: 2026-10-15