A healthy child who develops properly when properly nourished will gain weight evenly every month, if the child is not gaining weight or weight, due to improper feeding. Being properly nourished means that the child is eating the right amount of food, the right amount of nutrients. To accurately assess whether a child has been "fed enough" or not to monitor weight once a month, as in the early years his or her baby's body is growing rapidly.
There are usually two ways to detect and evaluate a child with malnutrition. Detection of malnourished children based on growth charts is used either in the community or at home to identify children at risk of malnutrition and how to assess underweight children by the indicator Z -Score based on age-weighted weight for professionals, nutritionists using the data, which is published annually by the Nutrition Institute.
To assess nutritional status, we need to know the normal development of a child's weight as follows:
The weight of a healthy newborn baby is about 3,000g (3kg) at birth, and weighing less than 2.500g (2.5kg) is usually a pre-term (premature) or malnourished child. fetus (full-term but weighing less than 2,500g). One-year-old babies weigh 3 times more at birth (about 9-10kg). Children from 2 to 10 years of age increase their weight by 2.4 kg / year and can calculate their weight according to the following formula:
Xn = 9.5kg + 2.4kg x (N-1).
Xn is the child's current weight (kg).
9.5 is the weight of the child at 1 year of age.
2.4 is the average weight gain in a year.
N is the age of the child (in years).
Early detection of children at risk of malnutrition in the home (community)?
A simple measure to identify a child who is developing normally or at risk for malnutrition is by regularly weighing the child's monthly weight to monitor the weight of the child, Head one point corresponding to the child's weight and age, the point of this month is linked to the point of the last month and so on, we will have a "way to health" of the child.