An anthropometric survey of US pre-term and full-term neonates

Abstract

Background: Anthropometric data prove valuable for screening and monitoring various medical conditions. In young infants, however, only weight, length and head circumference are represented in publicly accessible databases.

Aim: To characterise length and circumferential measures in pre-term and full-term infants up to 90 days post-natal.

Subjects and methods: In eight US medical centres, trained raters recorded humeral, ulnar, femoral, tibial and fibular lengths along with mid-upper arm, mid-thigh, chest, abdominal and neck circumference. Data were pooled by post-menstrual age into 1-week intervals and population curves created using the lambda, mu and sigma (LMS) method. Goodness-of-fit was assessed by examining de-trended quantile-quantile plots, Q statistics and fitted centiles overlaid on empirical centiles.

Results: In total, 2097 infants were enrolled in this study with a mean ± SD gestational age and post-natal age of 37.1 ± 3.3 weeks and 27.3 ± 25.3 days, respectively. A re-scale option was used to describe all curves. The resultant models reliably characterised anthropometric measures from 33–52 weeks PMA, with less certainty at the extremes (27–55 weeks).

Conclusion: The population curves generated under this investigation expand existing reference data on a comprehensive set of anthropometric traits in infants through the first 90 days post-natal.

Keywords:

• Extra-uterine growth
• infants
• limb length
• circumference
• growth reference
• anthropometry

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HHSN275201000003I).