Postnatal growth of children born small for gestational age

Abstract

A large, population-based representative study (n = 3656) has shown that the vast majority of healthy, full-term, singleton infants born small for gestational age (SGA) achieve catch-up growth during the first 2 years of life. Indeed, most of the increase in height SDS occurs by 2 months of age. Children born SGA who do not show postnatal catch-up growth and so remain short at 2 years of age, have a higher risk of short stature (< -2 SDS) in later life, with a relative risk at 18 years of age of 5.2 if born light and of 7.1 if born short.