Growth charts for Brazilian children with Down syndrome: Birth to 20 years of age

Abstract

BackgroundThe growth of youth with Down syndrome (DS) differs from that of youth without DS, and growth charts specific to DS have been developed. However, little is known about the growth of Brazilian youth with DS. The objective of this study was to construct growth charts for Brazilian youth with DS and compare the growth data with the Child Growth Standards of the World Health Organization (WHO) and charts for children with DS from other studies.MethodsMixed longitudinal and cross-sectional data were collected at University of Campinas, 48 specialized centers for people with intellectual disabilities, and two foundations for people with DS between 2012 and 2015. A total of 10,516 growth measurements from birth to 20 years of age were available from 938 youth with DS (53.7% boys) born between 1980 and 2013. The Lambda Mu Sigma method was applied to construct the curves using generalized additive models for location, scale, and shape.ResultsLength/height-for-age, weight-for-age, and head circumference-for-age percentile curves were generated for Brazilian boys and girls from birth to 20 years of age. Differences in growth of Brazilian youth ranged from −0.8 to −3.2 z-scores compared to WHO standards, and −1.9 to +1.3 compared to children with DS in other studies.ConclusionsThese specific growth charts may guide clinicians and families in monitoring the growth of Brazilian children and adolescents with DS.

Growth Patterns of Thai Children with Down Syndrome from Birth to 5 Years

“…Our results confirm that Thai children with DS tend to have shorter length/height and lower weight than the general Thai children in the first 5 years of life. Similar patterns are also found in Brazil, 18 United Arab Emirates (UAE), 10 and Saudi Arabia. 17 Several research studies show that anomalies associated with DS, especially CHD usually affect physical growth patterns.…”

“…11 However, such differences in growth patterns are not found in Brazilian children with CHD. 18 Based on these studies and our study, we believe that the growth patterns or growth charts for DS children should include children with and without CHD because CHD is a commonly associated feature in children with DS and its prevalence among DS children represents approximately half of the DS children population.…”

“…The difference in physical growth becomes increasingly noticeable when a comparison is made between Thai children and European children. 19,23 Brazilian children with DS 18 are taller and heavier than Thai children with DS from birth to 5 years old. While Thai boys with DS are smaller than Turkish boys 13 in the first 3 years of age, they are similar in both weight and length/height after the age of three.…”

“…Many countries have developed their own growth references and growth charts for children with DS. [10][11][12][13][14][16][17][18][19][20] However, no growth charts are available for the children with DS in Thailand. We have modeled our growth monitoring for Thai children with DS after the DS growth chart of the United States.…”

Estado nutricional e sobrevida global de crianças e adolescentes com câncer acompanhados pelo serviço de nutrição

“…(1) Pacientes com síndrome de Down, por apresentarem curvas de crescimento específicas reconhecidas pela Sociedade Brasileira de Pediatria (SBP); 52 (2) Pacientes com diagnóstico oncológico prévio ou recaída da neoplasia;…”