Re: Measuring height

[Guest guest]

YES....I was actually curious if they did measure your son

differently...They did that with my son too. We measured him standing at

30 " in the pediatricians office and he is measured at 31 1/4 " on paper witht

he same nurse. Getting a correct measurement is difficult on paper or

standing. If they stand they may bend their knees or stand away from the

wall. A medical professional has to make sure the child can stand

accurately against the wall before they really count on that as an accurate

measurement. Doing the measurement standing three times can help as well

becasue it will allow you to average the three as long as they are standing

with their feet against the wall and their kness are not bent.

If they use the paper the nurse can have problems giving an extra on each

side of the pen mark. I know because I was one, and I made mistakes in

measurieng all the time!!! The child would move, the parent had a hard time

holding their heads still, or I just plainly goofed and misdmarked the

paper. I always measured them more than once just to make sure I did it as

accurate as possible.

The GI clinic measures my son by a hard surface board that he lays on. I

hold his head against the top of the board and she measures him straight and

has a board that measure him to his heel. It has been the most accurate

way we can ge thim to measure, and he was 30 " just the same as standing. I

like this method better. It does not require you to strecth the child out

as much or fight to get them to stand straight and it has the numbers on the

board to see as you are measuring.

Jay

mom to

5 1/2 yrs old

Mathieu 20 1/2 months Crohn's???

talking to Jack's pediatrician, I finally figured out why my

son is considered just under 20th percentile by her calculations and

just under 5th with the geneticist: Our pediatrician takes his

height measurement lying down and gets 36 1/4 in., while our

geneticist took it standing up and got 35 in.! I couldn't believe

that just a 1 1/4-in. difference on the charts could put him in two

totally different percentiles! Has anyone else experienced this? To

me, the height standing up seems more accurate, since you're not

dealing with that crunchy medical paper! Hee.

Marcy:)

[Guest guest]

Marcy - You have hit upon a very important topic. Height is

measured standing up. Length is measured laying down. VERY

different -- anywhere from 1/2 to 1 1/2 inches difference, depending

on the child.

When we see kids at the convention, we have every parent fill out a

measurements form. And on this, there are separate columns for

length vs height.

Parents - it is important that when you are charting your child, you

note on the chart when the doctor " switches " from length to height.

Your pediatrician will usually do this around age 2-3 years old. If

you don't know from historical data, you can go back through records

and look for the word " length " versus " height. "

But good observation, Marcy!!!

>

> After talking to Jack's pediatrician, I finally figured out why my

> son is considered just under 20th percentile by her calculations

and

> just under 5th with the geneticist: Our pediatrician takes his

> height measurement lying down and gets 36 1/4 in., while our

> geneticist took it standing up and got 35 in.! I couldn't believe

> that just a 1 1/4-in. difference on the charts could put him in

two

> totally different percentiles! Has anyone else experienced this?

To

> me, the height standing up seems more accurate, since you're not

> dealing with that crunchy medical paper! Hee.

>

> Marcy:)