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Hello. My name is
Dr. Natasha Shur,
and I'm a Medical Geneticist and
have been for about 15 years,
and a Professor of Pediatrics.
Today, I'm going to be talking
about growth screening.
In Part 1 of this two-part
lecture, we're going to cover
Routine growth screening:
Does it measure up?
It's something we use in
every pediatric clinic
around the world,
and does it measure up?
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Infant growth is so important,
and that's why it really is
the first stop in
pediatric care.
Parents constantly
come to the clinic,
and they ask, "Is
my child growing?"
Because when a child is growing,
it's a sign of thriving.
Really, in order to grow,
you simply need three
building blocks.
The first is love and care.
That's central to any baby
and the baby's ability
to interact, to have that back
and forth, and to thrive.
The second is proper nutrition.
When I say proper nutrition,
that really just means
breast milk or formula that
has the essential protein,
fats, and sugars
for a baby to grow.
Of course, there might
be particular conditions
where a baby needs a
specialized formula.
But in general, that's simple,
and it's just feeding the baby.
Finally, a baby needs
medical health.
If there is a medical
problem, a rare disease,
anything that impedes that
critical two-year window
in the first years
of life of growth,
that can cause
problems with growth.
If you have all those
building blocks there,
then children in general
thrive, and they do so well.
But if there is one of these
building blocks missing,
then we usually will
see an effect on
the growth pattern within
even sometimes days, months,
and in that first
year when growth is
the most rapid in
all of our lives,
we will also see an
effect on growth.
That's why growth is so
essential to measure
as a proxy for children and
their ability to thrive
and meet their potential.
It turns out that routine
growth screening,
which we see all
around the world
in every pediatric clinic
and every hospital,
do not always have
the same focus
of really helping
children grow and thrive.
We don't always track
growth in children.
But it turns out
that the development
about caring about
a child's growth
really paralleled
a whole movement
of child advocacy
and child rights.
