Published online October 1, 2007
PEDIATRICS Vol. 120 No. 4 October 2007, pp. e1051-e1058 (doi:10.1542/peds.2006-2295)

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when eLetters are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services E-mail this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to My File Cabinet Download to citation manager Request Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via CrossRef Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Emond, A. M. Articles by Drewett, R. F. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Emond, A. M. Articles by Drewett, R. F. Related Collections Office Practice Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

ARTICLE

Weight Faltering in Infancy and IQ Levels at 8 Years in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children

Alan M. Emond, MB, MD, FRCPCH^a, Peter S. Blair, MSc, PhD^b, Pauline M. Emmett, SRD, PhD^c and Robert F. Drewett, PhD^d

^a Centre for Child and Adolescent Health, Department of Community-Based Medicine
^b Departments of Clinical Sciences (South)
^c Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom
^d Department of Psychology, University of Durham, Durham, United Kingdom

OBJECTIVE. Our goal was to investigate the association between failure to thrive (defined as weight faltering in the first 9 months of life) and IQ levels 8 years later.

METHODS. Weight gain (conditional on initial weight) from birth to 8 weeks, 8 weeks to 9 months, and birth to 9 months was measured on term infants from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Cases of weight faltering were defined as those infants with a conditional weight gain below the 5th centile who were compared with the rest of the cohort as the control group. At the age of 8 years, 5771 infants born at term with no major congenital abnormalities had IQ measured by using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Third Revision.

RESULTS. Mean (SD) IQ scores were 104.7 (16.3) (total), 107.6 (16.5) (verbal), and 100.2 (16.9) (performance). Children whose weight faltered from birth to 9 months had a total IQ that was significantly lower by an average of –2.71 points at 8 years, equivalent to 0.17 SD. Weight gain from birth to 8 weeks had a positive linear association with child IQ at 8 years. This remained significant in a multivariate regression despite controlling for correlates of both infant growth and child IQ; 1 SD of weight gain was associated with a difference of 0.84 points in the total IQ score. In contrast to early weight faltering, weight gain from 8 weeks to 9 months was not related to IQ at 8 years.

CONCLUSIONS. Failure to thrive in infancy was associated with persisting deficits in IQ at 8 years; the critical period for growth faltering was birth to 8 weeks. The relationship between infant growth from birth to 8 weeks and later intellectual development was approximately linear over the whole range of weight velocities.

---

Key Words: infant growth • weight faltering • growth faltering • failure to thrive • intellectual performance • IQ

Abbreviations: FTT—failure to thrive • CI—confidence interval • ALSPAC—Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children

---

Accepted Mar 14, 2007.

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				P McDougall, R F Drewett, A P S Hungin, and C M Wright The detection of early weight faltering at the 6-8-week check and its association with family factors, feeding and behavioural development Arch. Dis. Child., July 1, 2009; 94(7): 549 - 552. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				C J Kistin and H Bauchner A picture is worth a thousand words Arch. Dis. Child. Ed. Pract., December 1, 2008; 93(6): 177 - 189. [Full Text] [PDF]