Estimating children’s weights: a developing country perspective
- College of Medicine, University of Malawi, Blantyre, Malawi
- Louisa Pollock, College of Medicine, University of Malawi, Private Bag 360, Chichiri, Blantyre 3, Malawi; louisapollock{at}hotmail.com
We read with interest the study by Luscombe and Owens1 in which a new age-based formula is proposed for estimating weight in paediatric resuscitation. However, as the authors admit, the study findings are limited to a specific UK population and may not apply elsewhere.
In contrast to the UK, where children’s weights are increasing, in Malawi undernutrition is a significant problem with 48% of children under 5 years of age stunted, 22% underweight for age and 5% wasted (below −2 SD weight for height/length).2 Here and in other developing countries, it seems likely that an age-based formula developed in a well nourished population will overestimate the weight …
