Tracking a baby girl's weight during her first year of life is one way health care professionals and parents gain reassurance that the baby is healthy. Gaining an appropriate amount of weight means she is eating enough but not too much. Growth charts are used to track the standard or average weight of a baby girl throughout her life, including her weight at her 9-month checkup.
Growth Chart Importance
Growth charts are truly just reference guides for health care professionals. They can also be reassuring for parents. On the chart a baby girl's age and weight will be plotted to determine where she falls for her specific age. The chart is divided into different sections with lines that represent percentiles, which indicate the approximate number of girls in the United States who will fall into a specific weight range. These numbers were derived by the National Center for Health Statistics by measuring hundreds of boys and girls at various ages.
Influential Factors
Eating and activity level do play an important role in a 9-month-old girl's weight but there are other factors as well. The Kids Health website provided by Nemours Foundation explains that genetics, sex, nutrition, physical activity, health problems, environment and hormones impact a baby's rate of weight gain. When a baby arrives prematurely, meaning before the 37th week of pregnancy, she will weigh less than average at birth. Typically, a baby weighs between six and nine pounds at birth states the American Pregnancy Association. Starting below this average range can lead to a baby weighing below average at each of her well-baby check ups.
Ideal Weight Range
According to the growth charts used by physicians, a 9-month-old baby girl weighing 19 pounds falls into the 50th percentile. The lowest measured percentile, the 3rd percentile, documents a 9-month-old at a little over 15 pounds and the 97th percentile at 23 pounds. Falling directly into the 50th percentile is not necessary. Depending on the health care provider and the baby girl's overall health, she may be considered ideal at a weight that is slightly above or below the average weight of a 9-month-old.
Rate of Gain
The ideal weight range is taken into consideration with the baby girl's rate of gain. Beginning at birth, her growth chart will reflect the percentile she falls into. As she ages she will ideally stay in the same percentile. This means that a baby girl born in the 25th percentile continues to measure in the 25th percentile at each well-child checkup.
Babies who are below the 50th percentile will hopefully gain a bit faster, so a 3rd percentile baby will hopefully jump up to the 25th or 50th percentile over time. What a health care professional does not want to see is a baby who starts off at the 50th percentile and steadily drops lower or one who starts at a reasonable percentile and spikes beyond the 97th percentile.
Considerations
When a baby girl changes from one percentile to the next in a concerning manner or exhibits other health concerns like poor eating habits, irritability, lethargy and illness, she likely has an underlying issue that needs evaluation. Sometimes something as simple as a sensitivity to the formula or breast milk the baby is eating is to blame. In more severe cases, a baby may have a poor sucking reflex and as a result may be unable to feed or she may have a problem with her thyroid, metabolism or acid reflux.
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