| Summary: | In the last decade, there is a growing focus of health professionals on growth of children and their mode of feeding in the early age. According to the WHO global public health recommendation, infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months and thereafter should receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods while breastfeeding continues up to two years or beyond. In 2006, the WHO published growth standards and recommended their using for the assessment of growth of children up to the age of 5 years. The Czech Republic has a long-term tradition of its own nation-wide anthropological surveys (CAS) which provide data for constructing reference growth charts to be used for evaluation of growth and thriving in children. Therefore, the WHO growth standards were not implemented automatically. First, the study on growth of Czech infants exclusively or predominantly breastfed for at least 4 months (n=960) was undertaken. The aim of the study was to evaluate whether Czech growth references or WHO growth standards are more appropriate for growth assessment of Czech children. The study monitored four basic body parameters - length, head circumference, weight and weight to length. The hypothesis that growth curves of Czech breastfed infants will correspond to the WHO growth...
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