Baby growth charting

Working out my baby’s height, or their potential height anyway, has always been a source of huge interest to me. Predicting how tall they will be once they are fully grown is now something of a science, and I’m not ashamed to admit that I have their predicted heights written down in their little health books, and I am keen to see if the gene pool has been kinder to my children than it was to me. I loved using apps like this baby height predictor to calculate how tall they might be.

Height is determined by the following factors according to Head of Medical Genetics Professor David Ravine from the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research (Waimr):

- the height of the parents
- nutrition in utero
- the environment in which the child is raised
- nutrition in the first few years of the life of a child
- 70% of the influence for height comes from the genes coded for bone development, growth hormones, and metabolic enzymes.
These all play a key role in normal growth and development

While I want my children to be taller than I was, on the flipside, my girlfriend Trish is worried about how tall her kids will be. Because she is an ex basketballer who in bare feet stands at 180cm tall and her husband hits ceilings at 188cm. She has spent much of her life self conscious about her height and worries for her kids. We’ve both agreed we’d like to swap heights on occasion!

While there are more important things than hoping my kids will find it easier to reach up and get things out of overhead cupboards than me, I can’t help hoping that my husband’s genes prevail over mine. Fortunately our children are healthy, and fall well within the ranges for healthy growth outlined by the World Health Organisation.

Do you wonder how tall your bub is going to be? Have you calculated it yet?