CHILDREN AND FAMILY RESEARCH CENTER Non-organic Failure to Thrive Literature Review

2 Executive Summary Failure to thrive (FTT) is a descriptive condition of a child who falls to the bottom 3 to 5% or lower on established growth charts (Wooster, 1999). Generally, failure to thrive is classified into three categories: non-organic or environmental, organic (attributable to organic disease), or mixed (interaction of organic and non-organic influences) (Drotar, 1991). In order to rule out organic failure to thrive, a medical evaluation and a social history should be completed (de Jong, 1997). An observational period of the child in the hospital will show whether adequate caloric intake results in satisfactory weight gain. If so, the cause of failure to thrive is likely to be non-organic (Leung, Robson, & Fagan, 1993). However, the absence of organic disease does not indicate that a child with FTT is being abused or neglected (Wright and Talbot, 1996). The empirical research on failure to thrive, and more specifically on non-organic failure to thrive (NOFTT), can be categorized into at least three areas: child factors, parental factors, and interventions. What Child Factors are Related to Failure to Thrive? • There are long-term physical effects of NOFTT, including limited physical stature, smaller size, less weight gain, less cognitive ability, learning difficulties, and What Parental Factors are Related to Failure to Thrive? • Maternal IQ has been correlated with child cognitive abilities of children earlier diagnosed with NOFTT (Boddy et al., 2000; Dykman et al., 2001). • Poor parenting skills have been identified with parents of children diagnosed with • Families of NOFTT children have been shown to have less adaptive relationships • Mothers of children with failure to thrive often have difficult backgrounds and current • A study has shown that parents of NOFTT children frequently had a major mental disorder (Duniz et al., 1996). 4 What Interventions have been Shown to be Successful for Children Diagnosed with Failure to Thrive? • Clinicians who provide services in the perinatal period correctly identify infants who are at high risk of maltreatment and other major adverse outcomes resulting from poor • Children with FTT who were followed by a multidisciplinary team experience better outcomes than those who receive only standard medical care (Bithoney et al.