Child Growth eLearning Glossary
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| Term |
Definition |
|---|
| SGA |
small for gestational age refers to the weight status at birth |
| IUGR |
Intra-uterine growth failure
Infants that are born after 37 weeks of gestation and weigh less than 2500 g at birth are considered IUGR
OR birth weight is less than 10th percentile for gestational age |
| Premature |
less than 37 completed weeks gestational age |
| LBW |
low birth weight; less than 2.5 kg |
| VLBW |
very low birth weight; less than 1.5 kg |
| ELBW |
extremely low birth weight; |
| Corrected age |
Equal to chronological age; minus the number of weeks premature at birth |
| Growth monitoring |
serial weighing and measuring of the length/height (and head circumference in under 2's) of a child and graphing both measurements on a growth chart |
| Growth reference |
describes the growth pattern of a defined population without making any claims about health status |
| Growth standard |
defines a recommended pattern of growth that has been associated empirically with specific health outcomes and minimisation of long-term risks of disease. It represents 'healthy' growth of a population and suggest a model or target pattern of growth for all children to achieve. |
| Failure to Thrive |
general description for child with growth faltering |
| Malnutrition |
deficiencies (excesses or imbalances) in intake of energy, protein and or/other nutrients. |
| Overnutrition |
food is in excess of dietary energy requirements, resulting in overweight or obesity. |
| Undernutrition |
result of food intake that is continuously insufficient to meet dietary requirements, poor absorption, and/or poor biological use of food consumed. |
| Z-scores |
Also known as standard deviation (SD) scores. Z-scores have no 'units' and are used to describe how far a measurement is from the mean (average). Percentiles are commonly used in the clinical or community setting because they indicate simply and clearly a child's position within the context of the reference population. Z-scores are useful for population and research purposes. For comparison purposes, the 50th centile is equal to a z-score of 0. |
Table 4. Comparison of z-scores and percentiles
| Z-score |
Exact Percentile |
Rounded Percentile |
|---|
| -3 |
0.1 |
1st |
| -2 |
2.3 |
3rd |
| -1 |
15.9 |
15th |
| 0 |
50 |
50th |
| +1 |
84.1 |
85th |
| +2 |
97.7 |
97th |
| +3 |
99.9 |
99th |