According to Chinese epidemiology and population projection, the prevalence of dwarfism is about 3%, and there are 8 million dwarfism patients in China, and this number is increasing at the rate of 167,000 people per year. Although the prevalence is high, it is not terrible. What is terrible is that many parents do not understand the relevant knowledge and do not pay attention to the problem of short stature of their children. More than half of parents don’t know that they need to observe children’s height from 0 to 3 years old; 1/3 of parents don’t have the habit of measuring children’s height scientifically; 30% of parents mistakenly believe that as long as nutrition keeps up, height can catch up; more than 70% of parents lack sufficient understanding of dwarfism, don’t think dwarfism may be a disease, and stick to “early growth and late growth” after finding out that their children are short. After they find out that their children are short, they stick to the misconceptions of “early growth and late growth” and “twenty-three scurrying” and wait blindly.
In fact, the best time for treatment is before the age of 10. The younger the child is, the more sensitive he or she is to drugs, the greater the growth potential and space, and the lower the cost of treatment. Later in development, such as 15-18 years old, there is little growth potential and little room for bone growth, and it is no longer possible to reach the ideal height. Therefore, patients with dwarfism should be detected, diagnosed and treated early.
There are many reasons why children do not grow up, and generally speaking, the reasons are as follows: a. Short stature caused by lack or deficiency of growth hormone.
Other endocrine diseases such as thyroid hormone deficiency and precocious puberty can also cause short stature.
Congenital ovarian hypoplasia (Turner syndrome).
Idiopathic dwarfism: GH excitation test is normal, the cause of dwarfism is unknown, and also includes part of familial dwarfism.
V. Intrauterine growth retardation (less than gestational age), chondrodysplasia, chronic renal insufficiency, etc. during maternal pregnancy can cause dwarfism. It needs to be diagnosed by endocrinologists in regular hospitals to avoid missing the best time for treatment.