Emma Numbers at Five Months
The day before Emma turned five months old, we took her to the health clinic to get her measured and immunized. She keeps growing like a weed and is now up to 8.77 kg (19.3 lbs) and about 69 cm (2 ft 3 in). And, yes, she’s 100% breastfed.
On the growth charts in the clinic (they’re from Sweden, not the WHO ones) she measures like an average 9 month old baby.
I put the new numbers into the WHO Anthro program and here follow her plots of Weight for Age, Length for Age and Weight for Length. For comparisons sake I also dug out the numbers for Anna and Bjarki, so I’m posting their plots too.
So yes, this post is dreadfully boring (Hah! Most of my posts are dreadfully unexciting, but this one is about nuuuumbeeeers so it has a dose of extra boring for most people because apparently numbers are boring. Which is not true. But the media and society will have you believe that.) It is mostly just for me to keep things in one place.
Let the charting begin! Keep in mind that the lines represent percentages with the top line being “97th percentile” (as in “97 percent of ALL children are less heavy than the child on that line for that age”), then come the lines for 85%, 50%, 15% and 3%.
Emma, Weight in kg vs. Age in months. Measures like an average 11 month baby.
For comparison: Anna’s weight vs age chart.
Bjarki’s weight for age chart is all kinds of screwed up because he was born 3 months early, but…
… but if you pretend Bjarki was born on 2 October (instead of 28 June) this is the plot you get. (His due date was 4 October, but he was discharged on 1 October, and we have a PAMF measurement from 2 October so that’s what I’m using.) I find it interesting that his weight line tracks the curves somewhat better when you use his actual birthday. Also, yes, they had us bring Bjarki in a LOT to make sure he was gaining weight, and to give his his RS virus immunization which was only good for one month at a time.
Ok, on to Length vs Age:
Emma, the long one. Measures like an average 8 month old.
Anna’s length for comparison. She was also pretty tall, but took a longer time to climb into the 90-something percentile.
Bjarki was 35 cm when he was born (if I remember correctly), and you simply can’t put such a small number into the program!
This is what happens if one pretends Bjarki was born on 2 October. Notice how his length follows the curves somewhat better if you correct his age, than if you don’t (contrary to the weight numbers).
Finally, just for kicks, the Weight vs. Length numbers:
Emma seems to have found her line, and is somewhat heavy for how long she is (she totally has my butt and thighs…)
Anna’s weight vs. length was shockingly average. And yes, she lost weight as she grew there at some point, probably because she got sick, hence the close measurements. Which tells you a thing or two about the error margins on these numbers.
Bjarki evolved into a long-limbed skinny kid pretty early on. Here his birthday is irrelevant. I should check on his current numbers…
And that concludes the epic chart post. (I’m not doing the head circumference ones because they’re uh, so uninteresting to me since I’m not a medial professional.)
