Growth Disorders of Children in Bam and Baravat / Iran based on Children Growth Diagram

The growth and evolution are among the basic sciences in pediatrics. All of the health staff should be familiar with infants care and the natural pattern of their growth. The present study aimed to help the health staff in urban society of Bam and Baravat, Iran to solve infants growth disorders. This cross-sectional study was done in 8 health centers of Bam and 2 health centers of Baravat and Bam, two cities of Kerman Province, Iran during 2003-2008. After data collection, the analysis was done to determine the correlation between growth disorders and the risk factors by using chi-square test. Totally, 8.9% of studied population had growth disorders consisted of 29.92% non-obvious growth, 44.07% descending deviation from weight percentile (14% of cases was even under 3rd percentile), 6.47% with descending deviation from length percentile, and 19.52% with descending deviation from weight and length percentiles. There were significant relations between growth disorders and variables of place of residency age, duration of breast feeding, time of starting feeding, sex and prematurity. The high prevalence rate of growth disorders show a health and educational gap in relation to growth disorders which could be solved by health staff training.