At present, there are more than 4.3 million people with short stature due to growth disorders in China, and the number is increasing at a rate of 161,000 every year. More than 90% of the affected children have low self-esteem, autism, depression, psychological vulnerability and other psychological disorders, and tend to be more sensitive and lack self-confidence than the general population. Patients with short stature often have certain diseases that affect lifelong height and quality of life if they are not diagnosed and treated early.
The growth of a person’s stature has its own rules and is influenced by a variety of factors, many of which are unfavorable to the growth of stature and can be lifted and corrected as long as they are closely monitored and discovered in time. Unfortunately, in reality, the age that can strongly cause me to pay attention to their height is roughly 15-16 years old, when the growth of bones, especially the growth of long bones that determine human height has tended to stop. In other words, by this time, a person’s final height has already been determined, even if medication, nutrition and other treatments can’t help.
The parents are responsible for monitoring and supervising their children’s height. 2-13 years old is the prime time to treat short stature. Once the child’s epiphysis closes, parents can only regret it for life. However, many parents are not aware that their child’s short stature requires medical attention to find out the cause, they think it may “grow late” and leave their child’s height to time, or spend money on nutritional supplements and so-called height-enhancing devices. These blind measures often delay the treatment and even backfire. In fact, parents need to monitor their children’s growth and development on a regular basis. If you find that your child is 30% shorter than the average height of children of the same sex and age around you, or less than 2 standard deviations, or suffers from other growth disorders, you should go to a specialist medical institution in time to rule out the cause as much as possible.
Most of the dwarfism can be prevented and treated at present, with the exception of some cases. Even if there is no obvious reason for the short stature, medication can be used to make the body taller. Human beings have some “autonomy” over their own height.
The main points of prevention and treatment of dwarfism are as follows: 1. Children should be effectively monitored dynamically, and their height during growth and development should be recorded and analyzed in a timely manner. Those with delayed growth and dwarfism should be listed as key monitoring targets. Parents should become their primary monitors.
2.Strengthen and improve the nutritional status of children, so that their growth and development are on a good nutritional basis.
3.Actively prevent and treat chronic diseases. Effective treatment of multiple chronic diseases can avoid and reduce the occurrence of dwarfism.
4.Make children have a good psychological, social and emotional atmosphere.
5.Correct endocrine hormone abnormalities under the guidance of an experienced specialist. Growth hormone and low thyroid hormone are the common causes of dwarfism. The former can be effectively treated by injecting recombinant human growth hormone, while the latter should be supplemented with appropriate amount of thyroid hormone as early as possible, which can often achieve good results.
6. Abnormal cartilage development is mainly due to vitamin D deficiency or incomplete action, which causes the imbalance of calcium and phosphorus metabolism in the body and thus affects bone development. Supplementation of cod liver oil, calcium supplements, frequent sun exposure and vitamin D supplementation or active D3 is effective.