Sweden
Postnatal Growth
The curves below were made from an open-access paper published in 2008 (1). The authors performed a longitudinal study using health records of 3,650 children. An average of ~14 body measurements were performed on each child. Figures 2 and 3 in the paper are growth curves showing weight, length, and head circumference from 24 weeks gestation to age 24 months.
Size at Birth by Gestational Age
We made the curves in this section using data in the study referenced above (1). The study used the Swedish Medical Birth Register, and obtained data for all births recorded between 1990 and 1999. After excluding multiple births, stillbirths, infants with congenital problems, and others, they had data from ~800,000 infants. Because of the very large sample size, we have included lines for 3 standard deviations from the mean (the 0.1st and 99.9th percentiles).
Down syndrome in Swedish children
Clicking on the link below will take you directly to a paper published in 2002 (2). The study authors performed a longitudinal study of ~350 people with Down syndrome who had been born in Sweden born between 1970 and 1997. They made ~1,500 observations. They used their data to create several growth curves (Figures 1-6). This study included all children diagnosed with Down syndrome, regardless of whether or not they had other health problems that could inhibit growth, such as heart defects.
References
- 1. Niklasson A & Albertsson-Wikland K (2002) Continuous growth reference from 24th week of gestation to 24 months by gender. BMC Pediatr 8:8. doi:10.1186/1471-2431-8-8. Full text on PubMed.
- 2. Myrelid Å et al (2002) Growth charts for Down's syndrome from birth to 18 years of age. Arch Dis Child 87:97-103. Full text on PubMed.
