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A fair reason for failing to thrive

Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, Bristol, UK

Correspondence to:
Dr Richard Coward, Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, Paul O’Gorman Building, Upper Maudlin Street, Bristol BS2 8BJ, UK; Richard.Coward@bristol.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Eva had an uncomplicated start to life. She was the third child of a fit and well 30-year-old mother, born by spontaneous vaginal delivery at 38 weeks with a birth weight of 2.77 kg (ninth centile). Exclusively breast fed, Eva’s growth was initially within normal range; however, at 5.5 months concern arose regarding her weight gain and after GP consultation, she was weaned in an attempt to increase her calorie intake. This made no difference and at 7 months of age, a specialist paediatric review was undertaken at her local hospital for ongoing faltering growth (fig 1).

View larger version (110K):   Figure 1 Eva’s growth chart during her first year.

• A common reason for referral, estimated to account for up to 5% of hospital admissions.¹
  
• A term of problematic definition and measure,² however, a drop of two centiles³ on the standard Child Growth Foundation 1990 growth chart or weights falling below the 5th³ or . . . [Full text of this article]