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Diet, Nutrition, and Fetal Programming pp 431–438Cite as

Growth Criteria and Predictors of Fetal Programming

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Part of the book series: Nutrition and Health ((NH))

Abstract

The observation of poor nutrition in childhood and the development of disease in later life date from far back in Medicine. Ando so does the use of somatic growth, as a surrogate measure of nutrition. However, both the definition and meaning of adequate growth, particularly during intrauterine life, remain controversial.

From one side, developmental biology may interpret low size at birth as an adaptive process to avoid detrimental influence of stressors and, thus, as a beneficial strategy to a given individual or population. From the other, biomedical observations suggest that small size at birth is a sign of poorer health and lack of adaptation, and thus, a detrimental process to a given individual or population.

Not only too many factors (genetic, physiological and ontogenic) influence growth in utero, but the actual definition of what is adequate growth for a given individual, within a given population, at a given period of life is still a matter of debate.

And without a clear definition of this centerpiece parameter, all analyses of its influence on health or disease become, by proxy, unclear.

Classical growth curves, based gestational age and gender, were derived from population studies and have been in use for many decades. More recently, new, customized, growth criteria have been proposed. They incorporate other variables, such as mother’s height, parity and initial weight, to gender and gestational age with the aim of better assessing a child’s true growth potential.

The purpose of this chapter is to review standard and customized growth criteria and discuss which better reflects the effects from intrauterine programming and, thus, would be best suited to guide the studies of developmental origins of health and disease.

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Abbreviations

AGA:

Adequate for gestational age

IUGR:

Intrauterine growth restriction

LGA:

Large for gestational age

SGA:

Small for gestational age

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Royal Portuguese Hospital, Maternal Fetal Cardiac Unit, Recife, PE, Brazil

    Sandra da Silva Mattos MD, PhD & Felipe Alves Mourato MD, MSc

Authors
  1. Sandra da Silva Mattos MD, PhD
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  2. Felipe Alves Mourato MD, MSc
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sandra da Silva Mattos MD, PhD .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition, King's College, London, United Kingdom

    Rajkumar Rajendram

  2. Department of Nutrition, King's College, London, United Kingdom

    Victor R. Preedy

  3. Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Westminster, London, United Kingdom

    Vinood B. Patel

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da Silva Mattos, S., Mourato, F.A. (2017). Growth Criteria and Predictors of Fetal Programming. In: Rajendram, R., Preedy, V., Patel, V. (eds) Diet, Nutrition, and Fetal Programming. Nutrition and Health. Humana Press, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60289-9_31

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60289-9_31

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  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60287-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60289-9

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