Abstract

BREITMAN, Fanny; DEL PINO, Mariana; FANO, Virginia  and  LEJARRAGA, Horacio. Crecimiento de lactantes con retardo de crecimiento no orgánico. Arch. argent. pediatr. [online]. 2005, vol.103, n.2, pp.110-116. ISSN 0325-0075.

Introduction. Non-organic failure to thrive in infants is a multifactorial, complex entity. Information on growth is rather scarse. Objective. To evaluate in infants with non-organic failure to thrive attending an interdisciplinary team in a third level referral hospital: 1) anthropometric variables at diagnosis; 2) growth post -referral and 3) correlate growth pattern with associated variables. Population, material and methods. Design: descriptive, retrospective and longitudinal study. Infants younger than 2 years old with failure to thrive not explained by major organic diseases. Follow-up for at least 1 year. Anthropometry: Weight and length at the beginning of failure to thrive (time 0), at 1st appointment (time 1) and between 12 to 18 months after (time 2). Variation of ±0.5 DS was selected to consider growth improvement (curve A), stabilization (curve B) or worsening (curve C). Correlation between these curves was made with anthropometric, biological and parental capacities- related variables. Results. 33 infants were studied. Median age ±SD at point 1 and 2 was 0.50 years ± 0.25 and 1.18 ± 0.57, respectively. Median follow up was of 1.16 years ± 0.06 SE. Mean parental height and birth weightwere below local standards. Sixteen, 12 and 5 infants showed A, B and C curves, respectively. Skin folds improved in all cases. No statistical differences were found between the three types of curves and anthropometric, biological and environmental variables. Conclusions. The majority of our patients recovered normal weight and length velocities but there was no complete catch-up growth. There was no correlation with considered variables. A special pattern of growth may explain in part the syndrome. Standardizing growth evaluation of infants with non-organic failure to thrive and use of SDS to express anthropometric variations is strongly recommended.

Keywords : non-organic failure to thrive; infants; anthropometric parameters.

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