Patient's question:
Detailed medical condition and consultation purpose: My child was born weighing only 2.8 kilograms. Due to insufficient breast milk and her refusal to drink formula, she is now six and a half months old and only weighs 7 kilograms. Her height is approximately 64.65 centimeters. I don't know if this is considered standard. What weight and height are considered standard?Doctor's answer:
Hello: Based on the situation you mentioned, it is essential to actively strengthen the child's nutrition. Generally, people believe that if a child grows quickly in weight and height, rarely gets sick, and is healthy. In reality, this understanding only focuses on growth while ignoring development. Development refers to the growth of a child's nervous and mental abilities, including motor development, language development, cognitive development, and the ability to maintain good relationships with adults and children, as well as having good cultural refinement and hygiene habits.Taking children aged 6 to 8 months as an example, let's explain the criteria for health.
(1) Growth aspects: You can refer to the healthy standard values by gender. Height and weight within two standard deviations of the mean are considered normal.
(2) Development aspects:
1. Motor development: The child can grasp hanging toys, roll over, stand up from a sitting position by holding an adult's hands, and perform jumping movements with their arms supported under the armpits. The child can crawl and use their thumb and index finger to pick up small objects.
2. Language development: The child can emit sounds like "" (bà) and "" (mā), understand simple language, wave when saying goodbye, and shake their head when they do not want something.
3. Cognitive development: The child can focus their attention on people and objects around them and concentrate on interesting things and brightly colored toys.
4. Interpersonal relationships: The child enjoys being close to familiar people and starts to show shyness.
5. Daily habits: The child has a regular routine, eats, plays, and sleeps on time, and has no bad habits.
Therefore, to determine whether a child is healthy, it is necessary to analyze both growth and development. Of course, it should be noted that physical health can promote mental development.