INTERGROWTH-21st Project

In this episode of Milestones in Maternal Nutrition, Professor Andrew Prentice and  Professor Stephen Kennedy talk about the INTERGROWTH-21st Project and its contribution to the assessment of fetal and newborn growth worldwide. Professor Kennedy explains the development of international fetal growth, birth weight and preterm growth standards to address the limitations of locally derived reference charts. The discussion explores how this project demonstrated that fetal growth and newborn size are remarkably similar across populations when health, nutrition and environmental conditions are optimal. Together, they examine how these standards have improved the identification of growth abnormalities, assessment of small-for-gestational-age and preterm infants, and the consistency of maternal and newborn care globally.