Infant Growth Differs by Feeding Mode

Binns et al¹ have reported that the reference growth curves of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) do not accurately reflect infant growth in a cohort of healthy, term infants from 10 pediatric community practices in the Chicago area. The possible explanations offered for the discrepancies were in the following: (1) methods of curve construction, (2) birth weights, and (3) patterns of postnatal growth. The authors reported that the Chicago-area cohort grew faster earlier and slower later in the first year compared with the current NCHS reference, and they suggested for future work that "the possibility of differences owing to breast or formula feeding should...be examined."¹

In 1995, the World Health Organization (WHO) completed a comprehensive review of the uses and interpretations of anthropometry.² Based on contributions to this review by the WHO Working Group on Infant Growth,^3-5 WHO concluded that the current NCHS reference