Growth charts

Keep track of a child's physical growth over time.

Your child's height, weight and personal observations, measured throughout their childhood.

One day they’re little, the next they’re in high school. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with your child’s growth. Fortunately you can track their development and include health information that you think is important. If you like, you can compare their growth to international standards.

You can record growth information about your child including their height, weight and head circumference, or remove charts from view or edit the information at any time. 

People who can access your record will be able to view this information. Find out more about who can access a record. 

It's recommended that height and weight measurements are recorded at the same time to make sure your child’s body mass index (BMI) is calculated and graphed in the growth chart. It's best if these measurements are taken by your child’s doctor, who can compare them with the international average of children of the same age and sex.

How to create a personal observation

Get started:

  1. Sign in to My Health Record:


     
  2. Select the record that you would like to add information to.
  3. Select Documents from the top menu.
  4. Select My Childhood Development.
  5. Select Growth Charts.
  6. To start adding measurement information, select Add New Observation.

How to edit or remove an observation
  1. Select your observation from the list. If you can’t see the list, uncheck the Show chart data only box to show it.
  2. Select Edit or Remove next to the observation.
  3. Make the necessary changes.
  4. Select Save.

How to create a growth chart from personal observations 

Once you have entered your child’s height, weight and head circumference measurements you can now create a growth chart.

Growth charts can be used to visually display your child’s measurements over a period of time and compare their development to international standards.

Get started:

  1. Navigate to the Chart type section of the growth charts page located towards the bottom of the screen.
  2. Select the graph type you would like to view from the Chart type dropdown menu.

Only the charts that match the gender of your child, as listed in My Health Record, will be available to generate and view.

You can only add or edit observations when the Show chart data only checkbox is not checked. You can’t create an observation if one has already been recorded for the same selected date and observation type.

Childhood development comparison information

What is a percentile and what can it tell me about my child’s health and development?

Percentile information tells us the percentage of the sample population that scored at or below that measure. For example, to say that your child’s height at two years old is in the 20th percentile, implies that 20 percent of the data collected for height in the same age bracket is below the height recorded for your child at that age. Alternatively, this could be stated as 80 percent of the data collected for that measurement type and age bracket was above the information recorded for your child at the same age.

Childhood development comparison rates

WHO reference data has been provided by the World Health Organisation. It has been constructed using information made available in the 1977 National Centre For Health Statistics and the World Health Organisation child growth standards sample for children under five years old.

CDC reference data has been made available by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (USA). It was constructed from a series of national health examination surveys conducted by the National Centre for Health Statistics.

Visit the WHO website and CDC website to find out more about growth sizes.