Parents most at times think that their work is to support children to become great men and women but fail to think about the responsibility of working together with the physicians on monitoring how their kids are growing. Every parent is a pediatrician so all parents must know the basic pediatrics tactics. The best you can give to your kid as a parent is to know the changes in his or her life.
Growth and development represent a continuous interaction of biologic processes that begin at birth and terminate at death. The integrity and the quality of these processes are influenced by a myriad of variables, including genetic, physiologic, biochemical, psychological, and socio-economic factors. Physicians are uniquely responsible for safeguarding and enhancing growth and development but parents too has a big role to play here. The traditional medical role focuses on preventing, detecting, and treating the noxious influences that can impair these processes.
Knowledge of the normal growth and development of children is essential for preventing and detecting disease by recognizing overt deviations from normal patterns, Although the processes of growth and development are not completely separable, it’s convenient to refer to “Growth” as the increase in the size of the body as a whole or the increase in its separate parts, and to reserve “development” for changes in function, including those influenced by the emotional and social environments. The development of the human organism is a large, complex topic. To identify and treatment underlying disorders, all who care for children must be familiar with normal patterns of growth and development so that they can recognize abnormal variations.
Within the broad limits that characterize normal development, every individual’s path of growth and development through the life’s cycle is unique, with a range of complex, interrelated changes occurring from the molecular to the behavioral level. One goal of pediatrics is to help each child achieve his or her individual potential for growth and development and thus become a mature adult. Periodically monitoring each child for the normal progression of growth.
Physical development is a dynamical process of growth and biological maturation of a child usually referred to as a unit, express the sum of the numerouschanges that take place during the different periods of childhood.
Growth implies a change in quantity and results when cells divide and synthesize new proteins. This increase in number and size of cells is reflected in increased size and weight of the whole or any of its pans.
Maturation, which literally means to ripen, is described as aging or as an increase in competence and adaptability. It is usually used to describe a qualitative change, that is, a change in the complexity of a structure that makes it possible for that structure to begin functioning or to function at a higher level.
Very simply, growth can be viewed as a quantitative change, and development as a qualitative change. Children “grow” by maintaining a positive balance of increase over loss in size: they “‘grow up” by maturing in structure and function.
The main criterions of assessment of physical development are:
• weight;
• height (stature, head-to-heel length);
• head circumference (HC);
• chest circumference;
• proportionality of these measurements.
To determine whether or not growth and development have taken place, the child can be compared to a representative group of children at the same point intime (cross-sectional method), or the same child can be measured and compared at different points in time (longitudinal method). Standards or norms for the study ofdevelopmental progress have been established by these two contrasting methods. The most commonly employed technique for assessment of child’s physicaldevelopment is measurement of height and weight. When compared with standardized norms, a child’s developmental progress can be determined with a high degree of confidence.