Baby Girl Height and Weight Growth Chart: 0 to 12 Months
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Dr. Arva Bhavnagarwala (Paediatrician)
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If you’re parents to a baby girl and are anxious about understanding her growth in the first year, here’s something to help you. Read on to know more about the growth chart of a baby girl, right from one year to 12 months. Your little girl’s paediatrician usually tracks her height and weight changes in the form of a growth chart. This serves as an ultimate guide to determine her growth, as well as rule out any developmental delay.
Video: Baby Girl Height & Weight Growth Chart: 0 to 12 Months
Baby Girl Growth Chart (0-12 Months)
A growth chart for a baby girl is created based on her height, weight and head circumference measurements taken from time to time. The first set of measurements is taken at the time of birth. The doctor usually weighs the girl by placing her on a weighing scale meant for babies. The height is measured by making her lie down on her back and measuring her length from head to toe. Head circumference is measured using a measuring tape around her head, at the level of the eyebrows. Subsequent measurements are taken during regular visits to the doctor or at the time of vaccinations. These values are joined to get a growth curve, which is helpful in characterising the pattern of growth. The percentile growth of the girl baby is calculated by comparing it to a standard growth chart from the world health organisation (WHO). The WHO chart is devised based on the data collected from several thousand healthy baby girls to derive a percentile calculation. The minimum value corresponds to 3 percentile, while the maximum to 97 percentile. Typically a baby’s growth parameters can fall anywhere in this minimum to maximum range.
| Age (In Months) | Weight (In kgs) | Height (In Cms) | Head circumference (In Cms) |
| 0 | 2.4 – 4.2 | 45.6 – 52.7 | 31.7 – 36.1 |
| 1 | 3.2 – 5.4 | 50.0 – 57.4 | 34.3 – 38.8 |
| 2 | 4.0 – 6.5 | 53.2 – 60.9 | 36.0 – 40.5 |
| 3 | 4.6-7.4 | 55.8 – 63.8 | 37.2 – 41.9 |
| 4 | 5.1-8.1 | 58.0 – 66.2 | 38.2 – 43.0 |
| 5 | 5.5-8.7 | 59.9 – 68.2 | 39.0 – 43.9 |
| 6 | 5.8-9.2 | 61.5 – 70.0 | 39.7 – 44.6 |
| 7 | 6.1-9.6 | 62.9 – 71.6 | 40.4 – 45.3 |
| 8 | 6.3-10.00 | 64.3 – 73.2 | 40.9 – 45.9 |
| 9 | 6.6-10.4 | 65.6 – 74.7 | 41.3 – 46.3 |
| 10 | 6.8-10.7 | 66.8 – 76.1 | 41.7 – 46.8 |
| 11 | 7.0-11.0 | 68.0 – 77.5 | 42.0 – 47.1 |
| 12 | 7.1-11.3 | 69.2 – 78.9 | 42.3 – 47.5 |
Understanding Baby Girl Growth Chart Percentile
The percentile method of quantifying growth can be a little confusing to understand. However, it is a simple way of quantifying the growth of a baby girl. This percentile calculation is derived from the standard values provided by the WHO growth chart.
Suppose a baby’s weight is in the 75th percentile, it means that in a general set of girl babies, 74% of them weigh less than their weight and 25% above it. This gives a fair idea about the health and development of the child in comparison to the general standards. Each of the parameters, namely weight, height, and head circumference have individual percentile values and almost always differ from each other. An overall assessment of growth includes all the three parameters.
How to Read a Baby Girl’s Height and Weight Growth Chart?
As parents, it is essential for you to have an awareness of how to interpret a weight and height growth chart. You can request the assistance of your baby’s doctor to understand the infant girl growth chart better. There are many online tools available that help with percentile calculations of weight, height, or head circumference measurements. You can use one of them to arrive at individual percentiles, apart from plotting them as a graph to observe overall growth. Some points to remember while reading a growth chart are:
- Always make sure that the comparison is made in the respective genders. There are slight differences in the minimum and maximum range between the growth values for a boy and a girl baby.
- Measurements taken during a period of sickness do not reflect the actual healthy value, especially for weight. Therefore, a dip in the graph in such situations can be overlooked if there is a steady improvement in weight after recovery.
- Fluctuations in weight due to reasons like teething, loss of appetite, sickness, etc. can sway the graph mildly in a baby’s weight chart. Known causes of weight loss need not be taken as a setback in growth.
- Optimal percentile values are considered a good growth rate, but it is not necessary that babies should always be close to maximum percentile range.
- The baby’s height, and weight are important points that need to be kept in mind while assessing growth. Babies who have started with low values, tend to catch up with expected height and weight during the growth years. Therefore, the growth of each baby should be evaluated over a period of time, keeping in mind the birth values.
- Errors while taking the reading of height, weight and head circumferance are possible during babies’ first year, due to their nature of constant movement. It can cause variations in the baby girl’s height chart. You can request the doctor to re-take measurements, if you suspect an erroneous reading.
Factors Influencing a Baby Girl’s Growth
A number of factors influence the growth of a baby girl, which are a mix of genetics, health, and outside environment. Here are some of them.
1. Genetics
Genes play a huge role in the growth of a baby. Parents that are taller than the average height or are well-built are likely to pass on the same genes to their baby.
2. Nutrition
Babies require a certain amount of calories and nutrients in order to grow. Babies this age usually get their nutrients from breast milk or formula, with growth affected by quality of milk, duration, and number of feeds.
3. Ailments
Common ailments such as a cold, ear infection, etc., are minor hiccups in the growth of a baby, as he/she may feed less and be fussy. Once the baby girl recovers, growth is likely to go back to normal.
4, Pregnancy Health
Your baby is more likely to have normal growth if you have had a healthy pregnancy. Since the baby primarily gains nourishment from you during pregnancy, it is essential that your body produces enough nutrients to support both you and the baby.
When Should You Be Concerned?
A sudden drop in any of the parameters when examining growth can indicate a problem. In case the graph drops downwards, consistently, it probably indicates a developmental issue. Also, if any of the parameters are in the lowermost percentile, you can discuss it with the doctor. There could be a chance of malnourishment, and hence, you could ask your doctor about ways to supplement growth.
Tracking the growth of your baby girl, especially in the first year of birth, is very important to ensure good health and also to rule out any developmental issues.
Check and track your baby girl’s height, weight, and overall growth with our child growth tracker.
