Why should immigrants pay attention to birth weight charts?

A birth weight chart is a standard that doctors and medical personnel go by to determine if a child is underweight, overweight or healthy weight from birth to their early years.

These charts are used to determine if a child is developing regularly or if they lag behind their peers; children not meeting the birth weight standard are typically evaluated for developmental disorders.

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Babies who are considered small for gestational age, meaning they are smaller than about 90 percent of their peers, may have faced growth restriction in the womb that flag them for a lengthy stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU),  and make them more likely to have breathing troubles and die, reports Live Science.

Similarly, children that are considered larger than average on the birth weight chart are more likely to have broken bones or nerve damage; Their mothers are more likely to have post-birth complications as well.

The issue that comes into play is that current birth weight charts do not take into consideration a child’s ethnicity. This means children of immigrants, who typically have smaller framed children, may be mis-categorized at birth. Evidence of this is apparent, as many researchers from Canada have stated.

“World region-specific curves seem more appropriate than a single Canadian curve for assessing the impact of small for gestational age and large for gestational age on adverse neonatal and obstetrical outcomes among some immigrant groups, particularly those whose birth weight distributions differ markedly from that of the local population, such as East and South Asian immigrants,” Dr. Urquia, an epidemiologist at the Centre for Research, wrote in a press release.

“Estimating the number of newborns conceivably spared unnecessary prolonged stay in hospital, special care, or referral for specialized pediatric or nutritional interventions and the cost savings therein, is a worthwhile step in evaluating the impact of adopting world region-specific curves among certain immigrant populations.”

In the research, Urquia and colleagues noted that 10 percent of babies born to immigrant mothers rated small for gestational age based on current Canadian birth weight charts.

When the same children were examined using regional-specific curves, only 6 percent identified as being small for their age. A similar pattern was seen on the opposite end of the scale; on the Canadian standard, 5.4 percent of infants were considered too large at birth, but on a regional-specific curve, only 4.3 percent were classified as large.

Having a child that is not “normal” on the birth weight chart can be stressful for parents. Even after a child tests within normal developmentally, because the birth weight charts says development is slow, parents may continue to feel something is wrong with their baby.

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What’s more, pediatricians will make certain medical recommendations for children who weight above or below the norm. Not only can this lead to unnecessary medical expenses, it may not be in the best interest of the child.

Though the study was conducted in Canada, the birth weight chart used is identical to that in the United States. As The U.S. sees more immigration than does Canada, it stands to reason inaccurate birth weight is also an issue for immigrants in the states.