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How much is the normal weight of a newborn. Weight gain control and feeding intensity. What can the overweight of a newborn lead to?

Each baby is born with a certain body weight. The norm is considered to be 2700 - 3700 kg. However, small deviations from these figures do not yet mean that the child is sick or that something is wrong with him.

The weight of a newborn depends on:

  • health;
  • heredity;
  • floor;
  • mom's nutrition during pregnancy;
  • the physical and psychological state of the mother;
  • if a woman has bad habits;

The baby loses a little weight in the first days after birth. This is due to the body losing a lot of fluid and adapting to the new environment. At discharge, the baby will weigh 6-10% less than at birth. It is from the second digit (at discharge) that the indicators of weight gain begin to be counted.

Features of weight gain in newborns

In the first four weeks of life, the rate of weight gain in newborns is 90-150 grams in seven days. From the second to the fourth month, the child is gaining 140-200 grams per week. Then the increase falls to 100-160 grams.

Thus, by six months, the mass will double. Further, the set slows down, and by the year the newborn weighs about three times more than at birth.

Some children gain weight quickly, some slowly. Why it happens? This is influenced by a number of factors:

  • Health;
  • Appetite;
  • Type of feeding (artificial or breastfeeding). With artificial feeding, the mass is gained faster;
  • Regime of the day and meals. With on-demand feeding, weight grows faster than with hourly feeding;
  • The quantity and quality of mother's milk;
  • Mobility and activity of the newborn.

Scientists have established conditional average rates of weight gain in children under the age of one year.

Average rates of increase

The table contains approximate figures for the weight gain of children under one year old. Remember that each baby is different, and the recruitment rate may differ from the given values.

Please note that a similar table was compiled for children who are on artificial feeding. With natural nutrition, the baby develops the way nature laid down... And the indicators in this case depend on genetics and compliance with the rules of feeding. However, the table will guide you and help you get an idea of ​​the formation of the child's mass.

Please note that, the larger the growth of the baby, the faster the weight increases... So, a newborn with a height of 52 cm adds 170 grams, and a height of 58 cm - already 210.

How to calculate the proper weight for your baby

On average, the first six months, the weight gain in newborns is 800 grams, and after six months - 400. Therefore, to calculate the approximate weight of a child for a given period, use the following formula:

Body weight of a child up to six months = weight at discharge + 800 x age (months)

For example, a baby is 4 months old, and after birth he weighed 3000 grams. Then the proper weight = 3000 + 800 x 4 = 6200 grams.

To determine the mass after 6 months, we use the following formula:

Child's body weight after six months = weight at discharge + increase in the first six months + 400 x (baby's age per month - 6)

To calculate the addition for the first six months, just 800 x 6 and we get 4800 grams. Use the finished figure to calculate the weight of a baby over six months old.

If the baby is 8 months old, and initially he weighed 2900 grams, then the proper weight = 2900 + 4800 + 400 x (8-6) = 2900 + 4800 + 800 = 8500 grams.

Over-and-under

Mom may face two problems - underweight or overweight. If the baby is not picking up, then first of all, determine if the feeding is going right. The baby should receive milk 10-12 times a day and stay at the breast for as long as he wants. The number of trips to the toilet also affects. Diapers must be wet at least 12 times a day.

Excess is also a problem. Unfortunately, many mothers are only worried when the baby is underpowered. However, the problem of excess weight is also dangerous if the rate of gain does not decrease after six months, and the baby at 6 months corresponds to the parameters of a one-year-old. This may be due to genetics, but it will not be superfluous to seem to the endocrinologist. Being overweight can be the result of health problems.

If there are no problems, then excess mass can lead to the appearance of diseases.

Pay close attention to your baby's weight. Remember that the table is conditional, each child develops individually. So don't panic if the numbers differ.

This calculator estimates the weight and height of a child according to their age, down to the day. In contrast, this calculator provides a comprehensive weight estimate in strict accordance with the height and age of the child.

The ranges of values, methodologies and recommendations are based on the methodological materials developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), which has conducted extensive research on the development of healthy children of different nationalities and geographic areas.

Please remember that our calculator generates results based solely on the data you provide. If you have made measurements with a large error, then the result will be inaccurate. This is especially true for measuring height (or body length).

If our calculator shows you the presence of any problem, then do not rush to panic: measure the height again, and let the measurements be taken by two different people in turn and independently of each other.

Height or body length

In babies up to two years old, it is customary to measure the length of the body in a lying position, and from two years old, they measure growth, respectively, in a standing position. The difference between height and body length can be up to 1 cm, which can affect the results of the assessment. Therefore, if for a child under 2 years old you indicate height, instead of body length (or vice versa), then the value is automatically converted to the value required for correct calculation.

What is the height (body length)

Growth is the most important indicator that should be monitored monthly (see). Obtaining ratings "undersized" and "very undersized" can be a consequence of prematurity, illness, developmental delay.

High stature is rarely a problem, but a score of "extremely high" may indicate an endocrine disorder: such a suspicion should arise if a very tall child has both parents of normal average height.

Very short Severe growth retardation. It can also lead to excess weight. The participation of a specialist is necessary to identify and eliminate the cause of the lag. Undersized Growth retardation. It can also lead to excess weight. Consultation of a specialist is required. Below the average Short child, growth within normal limits. Average This growth is in most healthy children. Above the average Tall child, growth within normal limits. High Such a large growth is not common, however, it does not indicate the presence of any problems, therefore it is considered the norm. Usually this growth is hereditary. Very tall Overgrowth in a child is usually hereditary and is not a problem in and of itself. However, in some cases, such growth may be a sign of endocrine disease. Therefore, exclude the possibility of an endocrine disorder by consulting a specialist. Height does not match age You may have been wrong about the height or age of the child.
If the growth of the baby is really the same as you indicated, then there is a significant deviation from the norm, which deserves the special attention of an experienced specialist.

How weight matches height

The ratio of height and weight gives the most meaningful idea of ​​the harmony of a child's development, it is expressed as a number and is called the Body Mass Index, or BMI for short. This value is used to objectively determine the problems associated with weight, if any. And if there are none, then they are convinced that the BMI indicator is normal.

Please note that normal body mass index values ​​for children are radically different from those for adults and are very dependent on the age of the child (see). Naturally, our calculator estimates BMI in strict accordance with the age of the child.

Severe underweight (severe wasting) Severe underweight. Great emaciation. Necessary nutritional correction and treatment as prescribed by a doctor. Underweight (underweight) Deficiency of body weight. Underweight for specified height. Nutritional correction as prescribed by a physician is recommended. Reduced weight Weight is within normal limits. The child is less well-fed than most of his peers. Norm Ideal weight-to-height ratio. Being overweight (risk of being overweight) The child's weight is normal, but there is a risk of being overweight.
In this case, it is shown to pay attention to the weight of the child's parents, because obesity in a parent significantly increases the child's risk of being overweight.
In particular, if one of the parents is obese, then there is a 40% chance of the child gaining excess weight. If both parents are obese, then the probability of overweight in a child increases to 70%. Overweight Nutritional correction as prescribed by a physician is recommended. Obesity Necessary nutritional correction and treatment as prescribed by a doctor. Obesity: A nutritional correction is required as prescribed by a doctor. Impossible to assess You may have been wrong about the height, weight, or age of the child.
If all the data are indicated correctly, then there is a significant deviation of the indicators from the norm, which requires the special attention of an experienced doctor.

What is the weight

A simple estimate of weight (based on age) usually gives only a superficial indication of a child's developmental pattern. However, getting "Low Weight" or "Extremely Low Weight" grades is a good reason to consult a specialist (see). A complete list of possible weight estimates is given below:

Strong underweight, extremely low weight The child is probably emaciated. It is necessary to consult a specialist. Underweight, low weight The child is probably emaciated. It is necessary to consult a specialist. Less than average Weight is below average, but within the normal range for the indicated age. Average Most healthy children have this weight. Greater than average In this case, compliance with the norm should be assessed by the body mass index (BMI). Very big In this case, weight is estimated by body mass index (BMI). Weight does not match age You may have been wrong about the weight or age of the child.
If all the data is correct, then the baby may have problems with development, weight or height. See height and BMI estimates for details. And be sure to consult an experienced specialist.

Many young mothers and fathers, especially those who are expecting their first child, are interested in how much weight a newborn baby is the norm.

This question cannot be answered unequivocally, since the weight of a newborn baby depends on many factors.

  • physiology of parents ... If mom and dad are tall, with a large build, then babies are born with more weight than those of miniature parents.
  • if pregnancy is not the first , then each next baby will weigh a little more at birth than his older brother or sister.
  • gender of the child ... As a rule, newborn boys, under the same conditions during pregnancy, weigh more than girls.
  • if multiple pregnancy , then the weight of each of the twins or triplets will naturally be less, as this is necessary for the normal development of several babies.
  • health status of the expectant mother ... Even before pregnancy, the mother needs to take measures to improve her health, since some diseases, for example diabetes mellitus, various cardiovascular diseases, can lead to the baby being born underweight or overweight.
  • mom's unhealthy diet ... Food that contains a large amount of carbohydrates, as well as excessive consumption of salty, causes fluid retention in the body, as a result of which there is an increase in fetal weight, therefore, in order to carry a healthy baby, you need to follow a diet.

Newborn weight (boy / girl)

Official medicine considers the normal weight of a newborn from 2700g to 4000g. But these parameters are relevant only for full-term babies, that is, for babies, gestational (from Latin gestatio - wearing, the age of the embryo from the moment of fertilization, corresponding to the gestational age) whose age is 37 weeks or more.

Height and weight table of newborns (WHO norm)

Child's age

Norms for a boy

Norms for girls

Weight, g

Height, cm

Weight, g

Height, cm

newborn

3200

3000

1 month

3750

3500

2 months

4500

4200

3 months

5250

4800

4 months

6000

5500

5 months

6600

6200

6 months

7300

6800

7 months

7900

7400

8 months

8500

7900

9 months

8860

8300

10 months

9200

8600

11 months

9500

8900

12 months

9700

9200

There are specially designed tables for the correspondence of the weight of the fetus by weeks of development, they show the average values ​​of the estimated weight of the baby in accordance with certain weeks of its intrauterine development, that is, how much it should weigh at 10, 20, 30 weeks. If it happens that the baby was born prematurely, and his weight corresponds to gestational age, then it means that he was developing normally. In our time, more and more often babies are born, premature in term, but with a weight exceeding the average statistical norms. In this case, the doctor notes that the baby was born prematurely, for example, 36 weeks old, but large in terms of gestation. This phenomenon cannot be unequivocally called positive, since the "extra" weight of the baby occurs most often due to edema and the reasons for its occurrence may lie in the pathological course of the mother's pregnancy, for example, when her blood pressure rises, edema and toxicosis in the second half of pregnancy. Difficulty adaptation of a baby with a weight exceeding the table indicators is also often observed.

What is the reason for the low weight of the newborn?

The small weight of babies is most often associated with a mother's malnutrition during pregnancy. Such babies are under the supervision of doctors and are not discharged home until they gain weight of 2600g. It is generally accepted that large babies are calmer, sleep better and eat better, but we must not forget that the behavior of babies depends on many factors and how calm the baby is often has nothing to do with its weight. The normal weight of a newborn is purely individual and can be determined by a combination of many factors. Children are all different, there are big, there are small ones, but any deviation from the norm can be a reason to play it safe by contacting a qualified specialist.

The height of a newborn baby, like its weight, often worries parents. This is not surprising, because it is often by them that they judge whether everything is good with the baby.

WHO data

Several years ago, WHO issued new table-based growth rates for children. The data that was used before was collected a long time ago, and contained information about babies who ate formula.

Research has shown that babies who receive milk grow and gain weight slightly more slowly than babies who receive formula. The emergence and spread of overestimated standards for weight gain and growth is harmful, since such high rates can contribute to overfeeding babies receiving the mixture.

Growth table

The growth of a newborn baby in the table compiled by WHO is different for girls and for boys. The table contains several columns that show the height of the child from very short to very tall. Both very short and very high growth are quite rare and are an indication for a full examination of the child, possibly for identifying diseases and prescribing treatment. So, the average height for girls delivers 46.1 cm, a very short height - 43.6 cm, a very high height - 54.7 cm. Same data for boys are 49.9 cm, 44.2 cm and 55.66 cm respectively... WHO collected data on term babies, in addition to analyzing the growth of a newborn baby, head circumference and weight were also assessed.


Growth table up to a year (click to enlarge)

Immediately after the birth of the baby, doctors determine the ratio of height and weight (this parameter is called " Quetelet index "). According to him, the doctor judges the development of the child before birth: whether he received enough nutrients, whether he developed well. To determine the index, you need the weight and height of a newborn child, a table with these data, by which the indicators are compared. The weight of the newborn is divided by the height, a two-digit number is obtained ( the normal range is 60-70). All this is true only for a child who was full-term and born on time. For premature babies, developmental indicators will be different.

Note to moms!


Hello girls) I didn't think that the problem of stretch marks would touch me, but I will also write about it))) But there is nowhere to go, so I am writing here: How did I get rid of stretch marks after childbirth? I will be very glad if my method will help you too ...

Particular attention is paid to growth over the course of. It is believed that it is the growth of the baby that is greater than other parameters that indicates the development of the child; when calculating, formulas are used that take into account the child's age, height, and sometimes weight. It is believed that a child with good development gains about 25 centimeters in the first 12 months.

What affects a child's growth?

What affects growth? First of all, heredity: for tall parents, children in the first year of life may be higher than their peers. Growth may lag behind due to poor nutrition (insufficient, not for age, unbalanced), as well as due to some possible developmental anomalies, which can be established by additional examination.

So, growth is one of the indicators of a baby's development, which says a lot both after the birth of the baby and after it. It is important to determine the height, more precisely, to correlate the height and weight, therefore, the pediatrician during the planned premises of the polyclinic necessarily measures the growth and weighs the baby. If growth is lagging behind or slightly ahead of it, do not worry, this is completely normal. If the discrepancy is large, a doctor will help to establish the reasons and choose a treatment, if necessary.

And, of course, do not forget that numbers are good, but the most important thing is the well-being of the baby, his physical development.

Article

Your baby was born. You have been waiting for him for a long time, imagining what he will be, and how you will grow and educate him. But when it finally does happen, you are suddenly faced with many unforeseen problems. One of them, which never ceases to excite every young mother and all grandmothers in the world, is the rate of weight gain in newborns.

Weight norm in a newborn baby

"Starting point" of the weight of the newborn

Each newborn baby is examined by a pediatrician, and at the first examination he is immediately weighed and measured for height (). Then the child, together with his mother, will remain in the hospital for another 4-6 days to be monitored by doctors. On the day of discharge, he is weighed again. It is from these 2 numbers - weight in the first minutes after birth and weight on the day of discharge from the hospital - that the subsequent weight gain of the newborn begins and largely depends. So:

Baby weight at birth

All babies are born with different heights and weights, and the normal weight of a healthy baby at birth is considered to be in the range from 2,700 kg to 3,700 kg. It should be noted that the initial weight of a child depends on a number of different factors:

  • Baby health.
  • Heredity. Tall mothers with large weight are more likely to have large children, and vice versa: thin short women give birth to small babies.
  • Paul. As a rule, boys are always born larger (heavier) than girls.
  • Nutrition for the mother during pregnancy. With a high-calorie diet of a pregnant woman, the fetus usually gains a lot.
  • The physical and psychological state of a woman. If a mother is unwell or has lived under stress for a long time during pregnancy, this may well affect the health and, accordingly, the weight of her newborn child.
  • The presence of bad habits in a pregnant woman. Of course, a smoker, and even more so a drinker and using drugs, may have sick children with insufficient weight.

Discharge weight

In the first few days of life, children lose a little weight. Weight loss is due to several reasons:

  • Loss of fluid. When the baby is born, it begins to breathe, and a large amount of fluid escapes through its respiratory system and skin.
  • Power installation. In the first days, the baby drinks colostrum, and in small portions, until he gets better nutrition, and the mother begins to receive milk.
  • Adapting to living conditions. We know perfectly well that the young seedlings we transplanted from the greenhouse into the garden do not start growing immediately. So a child, having radically changed the environment at birth, does not immediately get used to living in it.

Thus, discharge weight differs by about 6-10% from birth weight. And it is from this, the second, numbers that it is customary to count the rates of weight gain for each newborn.

Weight gain rates

You and your baby were discharged from the hospital, and you ended up at home. The kid learned to eat, his digestion and heat and air exchange with the environment are gradually improving, and he begins to grow rapidly.

Note to moms!


Hello girls) I didn't think that the problem of stretch marks would touch me, but I will also write about it))) But there is nowhere to go, so I am writing here: How did I get rid of stretch marks after childbirth? I will be very glad if my method will help you too ...

Video: baby weight

Reasons for weight gain or lack of it

Weight gain depends on the following reasons:

  • Health. If the baby is sick, he eats worse.
  • Appetite.
  • Type of feeding: breast or artificial. With bottle feeding, babies tend to gain weight faster.
  • The quality and quantity of food (mother's milk).
  • Child's mobility. A person involved in sports is usually fit. Likewise, an agile child is somewhat thinner than a sluggard.
  • Regime of the day and meals. When feeding "by the hour", the weight grows more slowly than "on demand".
  • Age. In the first months, children grow faster; by the year, growth slows down.

Be that as it may, specialist scientists have established some average conditional indicators of the norms of weight gain in newborn children.

Rates of gains: table of the weight of a child under one year old

Average statistics show that the usual weight gain in the first year of life is as follows:

  • During the first month, when your baby is still very young, it is considered normal to gain weight by 90-150 grams per week.
  • From the second, third and until the end of the fourth month, the baby should already be gaining 140-200 grams per week.
  • From the fifth month to six months, weight is added again by 100-160 grams per week, and by six months your baby's weight should approximately double.
  • Further, growth begins to slow down a little, and by one year the child weighs about 3 times more than it was at birth.

 Child's weight table under one year old (clickable)

Deviation from the norm: is it worth worrying

Deviations from the above average indicators are very often observed. This is too little or too much weight gain, which is also bad, since too fat guys become inactive and develop more slowly. In addition to possible diseases of the baby, the reasons for such deviations may be as follows:

  1. Each person is individual in his physiology, and everyone grows in different ways: someone is a little faster, and the other is a little slower.
  2. The rate of weight gain for all larger newborns is usually higher. So, if for a baby whose initial height was 52 cm, an increase of 170 grams is considered normal, then for a child with an initial height of 58 cm it is already about 210 grams.
  3. It often happens that boys gain weight faster than girls.
  4. With artificial nutrition, babies get fat faster.

And there are many other reasons, which are different in each case, and it is possible to identify them only with an individual approach. And only after identifying these reasons is it possible to give an accurate answer whether parents should be worried about this and whether to take urgent measures. In any case, the rates of weight gain in newborns are averaged and approximate, and should not be taken as an ideal. And if in doubt about the child's growth, it is best to get tested and consult with specialists. If you and your baby are healthy, then, perhaps, for the appearance of rounded folds on his body, it is enough to start feeding him on demand, more often applying it to the breast, and this will solve the problem.