The INTERGROWTH-21st Project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and led by the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Women’s & Reproductive Health, has already shown that healthy, well-nourished women, free of disease, living in a clean environment and receiving good antenatal care have children with similar skeletal growth patterns inside the womb, at birth and up to the age of 2. This research has produced a unique set of international standards for monitoring growth, which perfectly match the existing WHO Child Growth Standards that are being used in virtually every country in the world.
Now, the international consortium of INTERGROWTH-21st researchers has found that attainment in early childhood of neurodevelopmental milestones (relating to cognition, language ability and motor skills) is, like physical growth, very similar among children across diverse geographical and cultural settings, provided that their health and nutritional status are adequate. The findings are unique because neurodevelopmental markers of early childhood have not been studied in this way before.
Read more (University of Oxford website)