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Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study
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Assessment of Child Anthropometry in a Large Epidemiologic Study

Published on: February 2, 2017

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Reliability of routine anthropometric measurements to estimate body composition in term infants

Daphne Landau1, Jessica Stout2, Larraine Huston Presley3

  • 1Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, MetroHealth Medical Center affiliated with Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, USA. daphne.landau@bmc.org.

Pediatric Research
|September 12, 2020
PubMed

Insights

Assessing infant body composition at birth using an anthropometric equation is reliable and provides a qualitative measure of growth beyond birth weight. This method offers a reproducible protocol for clinical practice.

Area of Science:

  • Neonatal health
  • Pediatric nutrition
  • Body composition analysis

Background:

  • Birth weight percentiles offer limited insight into infant growth quality.
  • Body composition analysis estimates fat mass, fat-free mass, and adiposity.
  • Current methods lack qualitative assessment of infant growth at birth.

Purpose of the Study:

  • Implement birth body composition assessment into clinical practice.
  • Utilize a validated anthropometric equation for body composition estimation.
  • Evaluate the reliability of measurements performed by clinical nurses.

Main Methods:

  • Body composition assessment integrated into newborn nursery admissions.
  • Skínfold measurements by clinical nurses compared to research staff data.
  • Body Mass Index (BMI) and Ponderal Index (PI) used as adiposity surrogates.
  • Correlation analysis assessed measurement reliability (P < 0.05).

Main Results:

  • 991 infants had body composition evaluated.
  • High correlation between clinical and research nurse measurements for BMI (r²=0.80 vs 0.82) and PI (r²=0.53 vs 0.58).
  • Demonstrated good reliability for clinical nurse measurements, indicating reproducibility.

Conclusions:

  • Validated anthropometric equations enable reliable birth body composition assessment.
  • Clinical nurse measurements are reliable, offering qualitative growth insights beyond birth weight.
  • Routine assessment provides a foundation for monitoring infant metabolic health.
Abstract

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