The first thing your pediatrician will do, starting with your very first well-baby visit, is measure your child's height and weight, plus his head circumference through infancy. It's to ensure that he's being nourished enough to thrive and grow, plus to check for developmental delays or other health problems. Your doctor will plot your child's development on a chart and make comparisons at each visit. Until 2002, these charts were based on the rates of growth for bottle-fed Caucasian children. Now, there are customized charts for other ethnic groups and differently fed babies ; for example, Hispanic, Asian and breastfed babies tend to be smaller and therefore grow at different rates. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that pediatricians follow the World Health Organization's growth charts to more accurately reflect children who breastfeed exclusively.