Why are many children’s heights unintentionally delayed by their parents? The survey found that 97% of parents of children with short stature recognized their child’s short height, but only 1.6% of parents realized that it might be caused by some diseases.
Parents who do not know enough about the disease and lack basic knowledge (such as the average height of each age group and the cause of the disease) account for 41.9%; those who do not think that shortness is a disease and mistakenly believe that their children will grow taller later account for 32.3%; those who know that treatment is needed but the cost of drugs is too high to afford account for 29%; those who believe in calcium supplementation and height increase advertisements and buy height increase or health care drugs for their children account for 16.1%; those who do not pay attention to their children’s height and do not give them regular medical checkups. The percentage of parents who did not give their children regular medical check-ups was 12.9%; the percentage of parents who did not know the average height of their children’s age group was 56.9%.
Nearly half of the parents interviewed attributed their children’s short stature to “late development” and “picky and partial eating”. They took measures such as increasing nutrition, physical exercise, vitamin tablets and height-enhancing supplements, while more than 20% of parents did not take any measures to deal with their children’s short stature. Most parents do not think it is necessary to take their children to the hospital for examination to determine the cause of their short height.
According to experts, short stature is a disease whose main cause is the lack of growth hormone in the body. The genetic factors that determine height are only 1/3 of the genetic factors and 2/3 of the environmental conditions, and with the current medical technology, the genetic factors that cause short stature can be treated if interventions are taken at the right time.
Through a nationwide statistical survey of the data of children attending the clinic, it was found that growth hormone deficiency accounted for 46.4% and idiopathic dwarfism accounted for 27.0% of the children attending the clinic. These children can be treated effectively with drugs such as recombinant human growth hormone. Without early treatment, the final height of the child as an adult may be only about 1.30 meters.
We remind parents of children with dwarfism that dwarfism is not a scary problem, as long as they pay attention and concern to it and have regular medical checkups for early detection and diagnosis; they should not seek medical help blindly, but should go to the pediatrics or endocrinology departments of regular hospitals.