Children with short stature, precocious or early development, overweight and obesity …… are increasingly plagued by various problems their children face during growth and development, but often do not know how to prevent them? Growth is a sensitive indicator of a child’s health status, nutrition and genetic background, and deviations from the normal range in height and height growth rate and weight may indicate some underlying congenital or acquired disease. As you can see, growth monitoring is a very important matter for parents. Growth monitoring is the repeated measurement of height and weight of the same child at a specific age over a certain period of time. The height and weight values measured at one time reflect the level of growth expressed at the age at which the measurement was taken. However, parents also need to know the growth rate of the child over a certain period of time because the growth rate of the child is the most direct and easy way to determine all growth disorders in an effective way. By measuring height continuously over different periods of time, the rate of growth in height can be calculated, and thus acceleration or retardation can be evident and the influencing factors can be exposed. A child with normal growth rate can indicate that his or her growth is currently normal, but it is not possible to determine whether the growth rate will be normal in the future. Children with reduced growth rates can be interpreted as growing poorly regardless of their current height. The easiest way to determine if growth rates are normal is to record data measured at different age intervals and trace them on a growth curve. If the child’s own curve rises parallel along one of these lines, it indicates that the growth rate is positive Because there have been no effective and inexpensive treatment drugs in the past, dwarfism has been a neglected disease for both clinicians and parents of patients. In recent years, the national standard of living has improved, and more and more children with dwarfism are visiting the clinic, especially during the holiday season, and the number of children attending the clinic has increased dramatically. With the development of genetic engineering technology, genetic recombinant growth hormone has been widely used. The price of growth hormone is also getting cheaper and cheaper, and more and more patients with short stature have been treated effectively, and the treatment of dwarfism has received more and more attention from endocrinologists and pediatricians. Wang Jianmin, Department of Pediatrics, Taizhou People’s Hospital How is dwarfism defined? So, what is the height below which is considered as dwarfism? According to the currently accepted definition, a child whose height is below the 3rd percentile of the growth curve of normal healthy children of the same race, age and sex, or below two standard deviations (-SD), can be diagnosed with dwarfism. In other words, 3 out of every 100 children belong to dwarfism, which is in need of examination and treatment. 2005, China conducted a survey on children’s physical development in nine provinces and cities nationwide and drew up a child development curve, parents can also observe whether their children belong to dwarfism by themselves against the curve (Tables 1 and 2). In addition, parents should also closely monitor the growth rate of their children’s height, and if the growth rate is less than 5 mm per year, they should also visit the endocrinology or pediatrics departments of hospitals. What are the causative factors? There are many causes of short stature, the common ones are: 1. growth hormone deficiency 2. hypothyroidism 3. congenital ovarian insufficiency (also known as turner syndrome) 4. hereditary short stature, delayed puberty development, etc. 5. 5. There are also some children who cannot find any cause, which we call idiopathic short stature. How to standardize the treatment? The treatment of short stature varies depending on the cause. Patients with growth hormone deficiency can be treated with growth hormone supplementation, patients with hypothyroidism can be treated with thyroid hormone supplementation, and patients with congenital ovarian hypoplasia are generally treated with growth hormone before the age of 12 years old to promote growth and development, and estrogen and progesterone are applied after the age of 12 years old. It is worth mentioning that in recent years, studies have found that patients with short stature for which no cause can be found (idiopathic short stature) are also safe and effective to be treated with growth hormone. Therefore, the US FDA has approved the use of growth hormone for the treatment of idiopathic dwarfism, which means that patients who cannot find any cause of the disease can also be treated with growth hormone. It is worth mentioning that the timing of treatment for dwarfism should be done before epiphyseal closure. In general, the earlier the treatment, the better the results. Children between the ages of 5 and 8 are the prime time for treatment, which is more effective and less costly in terms of medication. In the past, some people believed that adults had lost the time for treatment. However, studies in recent years have shown that adults can also be treated as long as the epiphysis has not closed and there is still a possibility of height increase. The endocrinology department of the Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical College treated a 16-year-old patient with dwarfism, who was only 130 cm tall at the time of consultation and grew only 2 cm in height every year for the past 4 years. After 5 months of treatment, the patient grew 6 cm in height in 5 months. It should be noted that the only drug for treating dwarfism is growth hormone, and there are some advertisements for height increasing products in the market, most of which take advantage of the parents’ desire for their children to grow taller quickly. Parents of patients should not believe in them and should not use them casually, so as not to delay their children’s condition and miss the best treatment time. You should go to the endocrinology department or pediatrics department of a regular hospital to see a specialist who specializes in treating dwarfism.