If you have a baby, it is natural to be worried about every little detail to ensure that they get a happy and healthy start to life. That can mean a lot of fears surrounding babies with a low birth weight, who do not grow at the expected rate earlier in their lives. However, new research suggests that this might not be as much to worry about as we think.
A study, carried out by researchers from the KP Agricultural University in Pakistan and the University of Bristol, concluded that babies who gain weight slower than their fellow infants will catch up to the same size as their peers by age 13. This is very reassuring news for parents of children with low weight in their earlier years. The authors also advised that such parents should not attempt to over compensate for their child’s low weight by increasing the amount of calories they consume.
This news comes from the analysis of long-term research, which began in the 1990s, into a large number of health issues. Primarily, the analysis was looking into limited weight during infancy and whether this led to any negative health concerns later in life.
The interesting results of the study showed that on average, babies who had poor weight gain early in their lives had achieved around the average height and weight by the time they had reached age 13. While a majority of children who had slow weight gain early on generally had slightly lower-than-average height and weight as teenagers. However, overall the results were almost always within the normal expected range.
It is important that this research does not indicate that this will definitely be the case for all children as the data was not always available regarding whether the child had different forms of support to deal with the initial problem.
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