Infant growth monitoring

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.

Care topic
In this atlas

Overview

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.

Scope

How a child's growth is tracked against growth charts in the first two years, and the US advice on which charts to use.

Life stages: Infant follow-up
Care setting: Clinical settings where clinicians assess children's growth.

Claims and evidence

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)

Eligibility: 1 inclusion criterion; 1 exclusion criterion

Included: Children aged younger than 24 months
Excluded: People aged 2 to 19 years (CDC advises its own growth charts for them)

Recommendation Guidance Certainty not assessed

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.

Source problem. A cited source is corrected. Check the sources before relying on this claim.
Applies to Child
- 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.
- Clinical settings in the United States where clinicians assess growth (the abstract addresses clinicians).
- United States (CDC advice for US clinicians)
- 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)
Certainty method
Not assessed

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

Next evidence check due
Not scheduled
Sources and citations (6)
1. Supports Use of World Health Organization and CDC growth charts for children aged 0-59 months in the United States
  
  Publication · MMWR. Recommendations and reports : Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Recommendations and reports · 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. · Published 2010-09-10 · PMID: 20829749
  
  Locator
  Abstract, sentence 6, fragment 1 of 2
  
  How it applies
  PubMed abstract.
  
  Retrieved
  2026-10-15T13:48:53Z
  
  Source effective date
  Not reported
  
  Source state
  Corrected
  
  Snapshot hash
  0a80e64e3f31ea2f2929545f783353427095c945b2d79f443d9ddeb790bfc1e7
  
  Reuse basis
  PubMed record fetched through NCBI E-utilities. Only the hash of the bytes is kept, because publisher copyright may apply to the abstract (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/disclaimer/). Short factual quotations under 25 words, with the citation.
2. Supports Use of World Health Organization and CDC growth charts for children aged 0-59 months in the United States
  
  Publication · MMWR. Recommendations and reports : Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Recommendations and reports · 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. · Published 2010-09-10 · PMID: 20829749
  
  Locator
  Abstract, sentence 6, fragment 2 of 2
  
  How it applies
  PubMed abstract.
  
  Retrieved
  2026-10-15T13:48:53Z
  
  Source effective date
  Not reported
  
  Source state
  Corrected
  
  Snapshot hash
  0a80e64e3f31ea2f2929545f783353427095c945b2d79f443d9ddeb790bfc1e7
  
  Reuse basis
  PubMed record fetched through NCBI E-utilities. Only the hash of the bytes is kept, because publisher copyright may apply to the abstract (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/disclaimer/). Short factual quotations under 25 words, with the citation.
3. Supports Use of World Health Organization and CDC growth charts for children aged 0-59 months in the United States
  
  Publication · MMWR. Recommendations and reports : Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Recommendations and reports · 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. · Published 2010-09-10 · PMID: 20829749
  
  Locator
  Abstract, sentence 7
  
  How it applies
  PubMed abstract.
  
  Retrieved
  2026-10-15T13:48:53Z
  
  Source effective date
  Not reported
  
  Source state
  Corrected
  
  Snapshot hash
  0a80e64e3f31ea2f2929545f783353427095c945b2d79f443d9ddeb790bfc1e7
  
  Reuse basis
  PubMed record fetched through NCBI E-utilities. Only the hash of the bytes is kept, because publisher copyright may apply to the abstract (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/disclaimer/). Short factual quotations under 25 words, with the citation.
4. Background Use of World Health Organization and CDC growth charts for children aged 0-59 months in the United States
  
  Publication · MMWR. Recommendations and reports : Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Recommendations and reports · 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. · Published 2010-09-10 · PMID: 20829749
  
  Locator
  AuthorList, collective name
  
  How it applies
  PubMed abstract (context for the claim).
  
  Retrieved
  2026-10-15T13:48:53Z
  
  Source effective date
  Not reported
  
  Source state
  Corrected
  
  Snapshot hash
  0a80e64e3f31ea2f2929545f783353427095c945b2d79f443d9ddeb790bfc1e7
  
  Reuse basis
  PubMed record fetched through NCBI E-utilities. Only the hash of the bytes is kept, because publisher copyright may apply to the abstract (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/disclaimer/). Short factual quotations under 25 words, with the citation.
5. Background Use of World Health Organization and CDC growth charts for children aged 0-59 months in the United States
  
  Publication · MMWR. Recommendations and reports : Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Recommendations and reports · 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. · Published 2010-09-10 · PMID: 20829749
  
  Locator
  CommentsCorrectionsList, ErratumIn, RefSource
  
  How it applies
  PubMed abstract (context for the claim).
  
  Retrieved
  2026-10-15T13:48:53Z
  
  Source effective date
  Not reported
  
  Source state
  Corrected
  
  Snapshot hash
  0a80e64e3f31ea2f2929545f783353427095c945b2d79f443d9ddeb790bfc1e7
  
  Reuse basis
  PubMed record fetched through NCBI E-utilities. Only the hash of the bytes is kept, because publisher copyright may apply to the abstract (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/disclaimer/). Short factual quotations under 25 words, with the citation.
6. Supports WHO Child Growth Standards (who.int tool page)
  
  Webpage · World Health Organization · 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.
  
  Locator
  Overview, paragraph 1, sentences 1 and 2
  
  How it applies
  WHO publication or tool page.
  
  Retrieved
  2026-10-15T13:49:52Z
  
  Source effective date
  Not reported
  
  Source state
  Current
  
  Snapshot hash
  f97e12dcb12ed9c44b78a51efc67d090b094545798834faeea2433af45529693
  
  Reuse basis
  WHO terms of use (fetched as ml-who-terms-of-use.html, sha256 8edac88c0773639d74a023402b231adafb407e8a680e6620c099eb5a17fb61ab) allow short quotations with acknowledgment of WHO as the source and bar other uses without WHO's written authorization. The page bytes are not committed. Short quotations with attribution.

Clinical links

Each link reports what one cited claim says about one population. "Evaluated for" means studied, not shown to work. These links do not show that anything is effective or right for you.

Claim, not a settled fact Recommended for this: WHO Child Growth Standards (Recommended for, seen from the other side)
Applies to Child
- 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.
- Clinical settings in the United States where clinicians assess growth (the abstract addresses clinicians).
- United States (CDC advice for US clinicians)
- 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 its 2010 recommendations for clinicians in the United States, CDC advised using the 2006 WHO international growth charts, rather than the CDC growth charts, for children younger than 24 months, and keeping the CDC growth charts for people aged 2 to 19 years. The advice rests partly on the recognition that breastfeeding is the recommended standard for infant feeding. CDC advised that, when the WHO charts are used to screen for possibly abnormal growth, the 2.3rd and 97.7th percentiles (or 2 standard deviations) be used rather than the 5th and 95th. CDC also noted that fewer US children will be identified as underweight with the WHO charts, that slower growth among breastfed infants at ages 3 to 18 months is normal, and that weight gain faster than the WHO charts indicate might signal early signs of overweight.
Source problem. A cited source is corrected. Check the sources before relying on this claim.
Limitations. Only the PubMed abstract of the MMWR report was read; the report itself was not (cdc.gov returns HTTP 403 to scripts, per the plan's host checks). PubMed links a published erratum (MMWR Recomm Rep. 2010 Sep 17;59(36):1184) that has no PubMed number and was not read, so the source is marked corrected; a published correction exists and whether it changes this claim is not known. The advice is from 2010 and is for clinicians in the United States; whether CDC has changed it since was not checked. The abstract says CDC based the advice on input from an expert panel convened in 2006 by CDC, the National Institutes of Health and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Record details

Record id: maternal:infant-growth-monitoring
Content hash: 16c79089a9e48aa2bbfb5d140d3e4a8c444aafdea54dba71a43920e0deaabde8