id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
hls-1785	Shrivastava, Saurabh R.; Shrivastava, Prateek S.; Ramasamy, Jegadeesh	Growth chart: passport to child health care in low-resource settings	2014	1	.pdf	application/pdf	869	41	49	It is designed primarily for the longitudinal follow-up of a child, so that changes over time can be inter- preted.5 Growth chart has a unique role in rural and tribal areas where people do not have access to specialists/tertiary care centers/labo- ratory services readily.3,4 Growth charts help in detecting whether a child is receiving ade- quate nutrition required for the basic physio- logical need of growth and development.3,6 Different types of growth charts have been developed and utilized in varied settings for accurate monitoring of growth of children.3,6,7 Apart from growth monitoring, the chart has many potential uses such as a diagnostic tool for identifying high risk children; for planning and designing of policies at the local and cen- tral level based on extent of malnutrition prevalent in an area; as an educational aid to illiterate mothers by encouraging her to partic- ipate actively in growth of her child; for assist- ing health worker to decide the type of inter- vention needed for specific children; and for evaluating the effectiveness of corrective measures / special interventions employed.3,5,6 To conclude, growth chart is a scientifical- ly sound, robust tool for monitoring health, well-being and nutritional status of infants and young children in different settings. The greatest reductions have been achieved in Central and Eastern Europe, however the situ- ation still remains grim in developing nations and in low-resource settings.2 In 2011, an esti- mated 101 million under-five children were underweight worldwide with the highest con- tributions from South Asia (59 million) and sub-Saharan Africa (30 million).2 The physical growth of infants and under- five children has been recognized as an impor- tant parameter to assess health and wellbe- ing.2,3 Multiple interventions – specific (such as use of growth charts, prevention and treat- ment of acute malnutrition/micronutrient defi- ciencies, safeguarding the maternal nutrition- al status, compliance with the infant and young child feeding practices - exclusive breastfeeding for six months followed by com- plementary feeding, etc.) as well as general (such as promotion of good sanitation prac- tices and access to clean drinking water, pro- motion of utilization of healthcare services by community involvement, etc.) have been implemented to counter the problem of under- nutrition.4,5 In low-resource settings, supervision and monitoring of growth of under-five children is of immense significance, as it can aid in early detection of acute malnutrition.	cache/hls-1785.pdf	txt/hls-1785.txt