Growth Charts for Children with Down Syndrome

At a glance

  • Healthcare providers and others can download growth charts for children with Down syndrome in the United States.
  • These charts can help track the growth of children with Down syndrome.
Up-close image of the smiling face of a teenager with Down syndrome.

Clinical growth charts

The clinical charts are in metric units*. Each chart is available for boys and girls. They show the 5th, 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, 90th, and 95th percentile.

*kilograms and centimeters

For children from birth to 3 years of age:

  • Weight*
  • Length/height (use length until child can stand)
  • Head circumference
  • Weight-for-length

*Weight percentile curves start at age 0 months. "Birth to 3 years of age" growth curves start at 1 month of age.

For people aged 2-20 yearsA:

  • Weight
  • Height
  • Head circumference

0 - 36 months

Boys

Girls

2 - 20 years

Boys

Girls

Considerations

Specialized growth charts, like these growth charts for children with Down syndrome, provide useful growth references but may have some limitations. For example, researchers developed these growth charts from a study using measurements from a group of 637 people with Down syndrome1.

The study recruited participants from medical and community locations, mostly from the Philadelphia area. These children might not be representative of all children with Down syndrome in the United States.

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Content Source:
National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities
  1. For children over 2 years old, body mass index (BMI) growth charts are available on CDC's Clinical Growth Charts page. Please see the publication by Zemel, et al for body mass index (BMI) growth charts for a sample of children with Down syndrome.
  1. Zemel BS, Pipan M, Stallings VA, Hall W, Schadt K, Freedman DS, Thorpe P. Growth charts for children with Down syndrome in the United States. Pediatrics. 2015 Nov 1;136(5):e1204-11.