THE WEIGHT
During the first year, nothing gives us so much information concerning the child's general well-being as the weight. Such a record will not only enlighten the mother concerning the development of the child, but the grown-up child appreciates the record and preserves it along with the other archives of babyhood days. Every Sunday morning, when the father is at home, the baby should be weighed and an accurate record kept. It is important that the baby be weighed each time in the same garments—shirt, band, diaper, and stockings—for every ounce must be accounted for.
Until the baby is five or six months old he should gain from four to eight ounces a week. Anything short of this is not enough and should be reported to the physician. After six months the gain is about a pound each month. This varies somewhat; possibly during the tenth and eleventh month the gain is lessened, but by the close of the first year the baby should have trebled its birth weight.
Dr. Griffith gives us the following very interesting bit of information concerning the weight of boys and girls after the first year, and to him also belongs the credit for the accompanying table showing the growth, height, and weight of the child up to sixteen years of age.
After the first year we notice that, taking it all together, there is a gradual increase in the number of pounds and a decrease in the number of inches added yearly, four inches being gained in both the second and third years, three inches in the fourth and fifth years, and after this two inches a year. The gain in weight is four pounds yearly from the age of three to that of seven years, then five, then six, and then about nine pounds. It sometimes happens that at about the age of nine in girls and eleven in boys there is almost a cessation of growth for a short time. Later, at about twelve years, girls take on a particularly rapid growth, and decidedly exceed boys of the same age in weight, and sometimes in height also. At fifteen or sixteen years the rapidity of growth in girls, both in weight and height, will be greatly diminished, while boys of this age will often begin to develop very rapidly, and will soon materially exceed the other sex in both respects.
| Age. | Height. | Weight. | |||
| Birth | 19 inches. | 7 lbs. | 8 oz. | ||
| 1 week | 7 " | 7½ " | |||
| 2 weeks | 7 " | 10½ " | } | Gained 1 oz. a day; 7 oz. a week | |
| 3 weeks | 8 " | 2 " | |||
| 1 month | 20½ " | 8¾ " | |||
| 2 months | 21 " | 10¾ " | |||
| 3 months | 22 " | 12¼ " | } | { | Gained ¾ oz. a day; 5½ oz. a week |
| 4 months | 23 " | 13¾ " | |||
| 5 months | 23½ " | 15 " | } | { | Double original weight. Gained 2/3 oz. a day; 42/3 oz. a week Gained ½ in. a month Gained about 1 lb. a month Treble original weight. |
| 6 months | 24 " | 16¼ " | |||
| 7 months | 24½ " | 17¼ " | } | ||
| 8 months | 25 " | 18¼ " | |||
| 9 months | 25½ " | 18¾ " | |||
| 10 months | 26 " | 19¾ " | |||
| 11 months | 26½ " | 20½ " | |||
| 1 year | 27 " | 21½ " | |||
| 2 years | 31 " | 27 " | } | { | Gained 4 in. a year |
| 3 years | 35 " | 32 " | |||
| 4 years | 37½ " | 36 " | } | { | Double original length. Gained 3 in. and 4 lbs. a year. |
| 5 years | 40 " | 40 " | |||
| 6 years | 43 " | 44 " | } | { | Gained 2 in. and 4 lbs. a year. |
| 7 years | 45 " | 48 " | |||
| 8 years | 47 " | 53 " | } | { | Gained 2 in. and 5 lbs. a year. |
| 9 years | 49 " | 58 " | |||
| 10 years | 51 " | 64 " | } | { | Gained 2 in. and 6 lbs. a year. |
| 11 years | 53 " | 70 " | |||
| 12 years | 55 " | 79 " | } | ||
| 13 years | 57 " | 88 " | |||
| 14 years | 59 " | 100 " | { | Gained 2 inches and about 9 lbs. a year. | |
| 15 years | 61 " | 109 " | |||
| 16 years | 63 " | 117 " |
GENERAL DEVELOPMENT
The accompanying illustration ([Fig. 14]), taken from Dr. Yale, represents the developmental changes at one, five, nine, thirteen, seventeen, and twenty-one years. Each figure is divided into four equal parts, and as we watch the development from the baby who at one year, as Dr. Yale says, is four heads high, at the age of twenty-one the legs and the trunk have much outgrown the growth of the head, so that at this age the head is only two-thirteenths or less of the whole length of the body. The legs have grown more rapidly and equal one-half the entire body length. The trunk has not kept pace with the legs, for as you will see from the diagram the line reaches the navel of the child in one year, while in the adult it is much lower. The rapid growth of the legs is accomplished after nine years of age.
Fig. 14. Developmental Changes.
The proportions of the head, chest, and abdomen are exceedingly important in the growing child. At the end of the first year the head, chest, and abdomen are about uniform in circumference. The head may measure one-fourth of an inch more, but the chest and abdomen should both measure eighteen inches in circumference at this time. Should the head or the abdomen be two inches larger than the chest; the attention of the physician should be called to it, for either are indicative of conditions that should be carefully investigated.