Prepubertal Growth Pattern in Twins - Zsakai - 2003

The problems studied were: (1) whether singletons and twins and (2) whether twins of different maturation status differed in postnatal growth pattern. The growth pattern had been followed for the first ten years of life. Maturation status of the twins was assessed by anthropometric measures at birth: the contrasted subgroups belonged to the upper and lower quartiles and the interquartile range of body weight, resp. weight for length. Compared to singletons the body weight of twins caught up by the age of 2 years, the body height by the age of 3 years, resp. Taking peer-age singleton weight and height medians as 100%, median weight and height of maturation subgroups were expressed in percentage. No difference was found among maturation subgroups in the duration of the fast catch-up growth period. After 3 years of age the rate of growth was similar to singletons in all the three subgroups of twins, but the weight of the lower quartile twins lagged consistently behind by about 5-10 %. The lag was more marked in the females. By the end of the 3rd year of life the centile distribution of the maturation subgroups converged. However, there was at least one centile grade between the highest and lowest quartile subgroups up to the age of 10 years.

Keywords

Budapest Longitudinal Twin study - Neonatal maturaty status - Body mass and height centiles

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