Allometry: Relating Infant Head Growth to Growth of the Rest of Their Body

by Sasha Arms

Submitted : Fall 2010

Our goal in this paper is to study the different growth rates of female infants to age three to answer determined questions. Allometry is simply the  “study of the growth of part of an organism in relation to the growth of the entire organism”. It has been proven that most living things grow during their lives by a factor greater than 2 and that a baby’s head is relatively larger than an adult’s, where as its arms are disproportionately shorter. We will use the combination of allometry and calculus to answer a main question: if an infant’s head and body grew at the same rate, what would be the size of the infant’s head? At which rate does the infant’s head grow in interval of 4 months?

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