Failure to Thrive

Failure to thrive, also called faltering growth or weight faltering, describes insufficient weight gain or growth in a child, most often measured as weight below the fifth percentile for age or a drop of two or more percentile lines on a standard growth chart, though no single definition is universally agreed. It is not itself a disease but a sign that something is interfering with normal growth, and its causes fall into three broad groups: inadequate caloric intake, from poverty, feeding difficulties, or neglect; malabsorption or excessive loss of calories, as in cystic fibrosis, celiac disease, or food allergy; and increased metabolic demand, from infection, inflammation, hyperthyroidism, or congenital heart disease. As many as ninety percent of cases are described as non-organic, meaning they trace to environmental or caregiving circumstances rather than an underlying medical illness.