ABSTRACT
Care was taken to see that the disciplines of growth and nutrition, pediatrics, obstetrics, perinatal pathology, epidemiology, community medicine, and public health were all represented. The Bristol Perinatal Growth Chart has many uses in addition to that as a standard against which other charts may be compared. D. Pecorari and his colleagues have demonstrated the use of the Bristol Perinatal Growth Chart as an international standard for reference in respect to Caucasian populations. While more non-Caucasian data is still awaited it does appear as though the normal unconstrained growth in the perinatal period of other ethnic groups is very similar. In conclusion, a versatile perinatal weight chart, based on the concept of normal unconstrained growth, has been created to serve as an international standard for reference purposes. It permits allowance to be made for biologic variables such as sex and maternal height, and appears to be applicable to differing ethnic groups.
