Growth hormone treatments may be good news for children who have short parents. However, growth hormone therapy is generally only effective for children who are deficient in growth hormone and does not help much for normal children. If the problem is genetic, growth hormone therapy is hardly effective. So which children is the therapy for? Growth hormone therapy is a treatment for children who do not produce growth hormone properly due to certain diseases or abnormalities in the pituitary gland. These children generally grow 8-250 px in the first year of treatment and 7-200 px in the second year, and should be treated if their predicted future height is below 4125 px for males and 3750 px for females. When is the best time to have growth hormone therapy? Growth hormone therapy is a method of stimulating the epiphyseal plate to accelerate bone growth as the bones grow. Therefore, it is only effective if the epiphyseal plates are open, but not if they are closed. Growth hormone therapy is available from the age of 5. If your family is short, you can decide whether to undergo the therapy after a physical examination. How many centimeters can I grow after treatment? The effectiveness of growth hormone therapy depends on the child’s current height, weight, bone age, the start of treatment, and the course of treatment. Generally, growth hormone therapy can make a child about 250 px taller than he or she would otherwise be. Growth hormone therapy is largely ineffective if the bone age is over 14 years old for females and over 17 years old for males, as determined by x-ray. GH deficiency can be treated with growth hormone to achieve normal adult height within -2 SD, but about 50% of patients cannot reach their adult height due to the following reasons: ① delayed diagnosis and treatment; ② short treatment time; ③ antibodies generated during growth hormone treatment, which slow down growth; ④ some patients fail to deal with low thyroxine levels in time during treatment; ⑤ the cause is unknown and may be related to GH receptor or post-receptor defects. Course of treatment and therapy: Usually lasts from 6 months to 1 year. Subcutaneous injections are administered daily at home after purchasing growth hormone preparations according to the doctor’s prescription (intramuscular injections tend to cause fat atrophy and antibody production). It has been shown that daily subcutaneous injections of GH 30 min before bedtime at night increase the growth rate more than during the day, that the number of injections is positively correlated with the growth effect, that daily injections are better than every other day injections, and that the efficacy is related not only to the number of pulses, but also to the time when the serum GH rises. If the growth is more than 125px in 6 months, it means there is an effect, if it is below 75px, it is considered that there is no significant effect and the treatment can be stopped. You should go to the hospital every 3-6 months for a checkup to confirm the treatment process. The dosage of injections is weight dependent. Natural growth is the best option Many people think that growth hormone therapy is a cure-all for height problems, but this is not entirely true. If the lack of growth hormone secretion is not caused by disease or if the child is under a lot of psychological stress due to height, it is best to let the child grow naturally and healthily through the mother’s care. Doing more than 30 minutes of exercise every day and taking balanced nutrition can make growth hormone secretion flourish. So let your child exercise more in ordinary life, eat well, let your child have a happy life, or develop your child’s ability to draw, sing or dance can make your child grow well.