In modern society, the pressure of competition is greater, parents want their children to be excellent in all aspects, and also in height. With the improvement of the standard of living, the average height of young people around us is gradually increasing, parents and the social concept of the child’s height expectations are also “high”, if it is a boy, I hope to grow as tall as Yao Ming, Liu Xiang, if it is a girl, I hope to have a tall body like a model. So there are always some parents feel that their children are a little short, so how tall is normal for a person to grow?
In what range of height does it belong to the category of short stature?
Short stature refers to a comparison between children of the same race, sex and age in a similar living environment, if the height of some children is lower than the average height of the population by 2 standard deviations (-2 SD), or lower than the 3rd percentile (-1.88 SD), they are short. For example, in China, a hundred 10-year-old boys lined up in descending order of height can range from 122 cm to 152 cm, of which there may be three children below 128 cm, and these are short in stature.
What determines height.
Human growth and development is determined by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Genetic factors account for 60-70% of this, with heredity determining the likelihood of growth and development, and environmental conditions determining the rate of growth and development and the extent to which it may be achieved. Different races, families, and individuals may have different effects on height due to differences in sexual maturity, nutritional needs, and resistance to disease.
In addition to genetic factors, there are other factors, including the following.
1. Maternal factors.
The child’s height has to be caught from the mother’s womb. The mother’s nutrition and emotions while pregnant, the presence of diseases such as hypertension, gestational toxemia, diabetes, infections, etc. can affect the health of the child. Some mothers drink alcohol, smoke, take drugs with strong side effects, take X-rays, and have uterine and placental abnormalities when they are pregnant, which are all detrimental to the growth and development of the fetus.
2.Nutritional status.
Proper nutrition allows a person’s full growth potential to be realized. Proper nutrition includes the appropriate amount as well as the proportion, too much nutrition can cause obesity, but will inhibit the secretion of growth hormone.
3, disease factors.
Acute disease will affect the child’s weight, such as pneumonia, acute diarrhea, etc.. But some chronic diseases, such as chronic hepatitis, nephritis, etc. on the height and weight of the impact may be greater.
4, living environment.
Our living conditions, living habits, cultural upbringing, sports, health care levels, etc., have a certain impact on growth. Some rural children are born at home, poor sanitation, these may have a negative impact on their later height. In addition, living conditions, sunlight, air, water, living habits, family economic situation, exercise, the level of health care services, etc., also have a role in the child’s height.
5.Endocrine factors.
Mainly including growth hormone, thyroid hormone, sex hormones. From infancy to pre-puberty depends on growth hormone and thyroid hormone. The growth rate accelerates again during puberty, and the growth in this period depends on the above two hormones, and is influenced by sex hormones.
Recording the child’s growth curve.
There are many parents who look at their child’s short stature, and when they ask how many centimeters their child grows each year, they can’t answer anything after thinking for a long time, they just say “probably”, “maybe”, “didn’t notice”, etc. “I haven’t noticed” and so on. Most of the answers seem to be as if the child is always so much shorter than other children, with other children as a reference, without a specific quantification. Let’s introduce the growth pattern of children.
There are two stages of rapid height growth in the normal human growth process, the so-called growth spurt: infancy and adolescent development. Parents can find that children grow particularly fast in the first 2 years of life, with newborns increasing in height by 25 cm in the first year of life and by about 12 cm in the second year. When a child enters puberty, he or she can gain an average of 7-10 cm per year, and this period lasts for about three years, with a total increase of about 25-28 cm during this period. After the age of 3, the child’s height increases by an average of about 5-6 cm per year.
Doctors advise parents to keep a detailed record of their child’s growth. Growth rate is the most direct and simple way to determine if there is a growth disorder. If the growth rate is less than 4 cm per year for a child over the age of 3, think about a growth disorder.
To record your child’s growth, you need to help your child measure his or her height and weight regularly and make records. How about accurate height measurement. It is best to do a dedicated measurement, the same measurement can reduce the error of human factors. You can have your child lean against a wall, stand straight with his chest up, ask for three points to form a line, that is, the back of the child’s head, hips and heels are against the wall, use a book flat on the child’s head, measure the height. This way, if you measure every six months or a year for a few years, you can clearly see the growth pattern of your child and identify problems in time. Not keeping records is not conducive to problem tracking. In addition, parents can also record the child’s youthful development, such as when the girl’s menarche, the boy has not changed voice, there is no precocious sexual maturity phenomenon. This is because these physiological phenomena are sometimes closely related to the child’s growth.
What kind of effect does precocious puberty have on height.
With the improvement of living standards, the incidence of precocious puberty is on the rise. Although the current height of children with precocious puberty is not short, their bone age has overshot, and a large amount of sex hormones are secreted in advance, causing the epiphysis to close early, resulting in premature stoppage of height growth and ultimately short height in general. Parents must not give their children tonic products at will, and the few children with malnutrition and delayed growth must also be taken under the guidance of a doctor. The first menstruation is an important sign of youthful development in girls. The fastest growth in height for girls is about a year before menarche, and then the growth rate gradually decreases. After the first menstruation, the growth rate also decreases significantly as the epiphysis gradually heals due to the increase in hormone levels, but the average height can still increase by 5-6 cm.
Treatment of short stature.
If a child is found to be short in stature, he or she needs to be seen by a doctor in the endocrinology department of a regular hospital in a timely manner, and the earlier the treatment, the better the results may be. The current accepted treatment for dwarfism is standardized human growth hormone injection therapy. For some children with growth hormone deficiency, the effect of growth hormone injection is obvious, and some affected children even grow 15 cm taller in 1 year. Growth hormone deficiency is a deficiency of growth hormone secreted by the pituitary gland due to various reasons. Growth hormone is a hormone that promotes body growth. The main physiological role of growth hormone is to promote the synthesis of various tissues in the body, especially protein, and stimulate the growth of cartilage in bone joints and epiphysis, thus making the body taller. Growth hormone and sex hormone may affect height, but these hormones only play the role of “driver”, and they must have certain conditions, such as adequate nutrition, exercise and sleep, in order to give full play to the hormones. It is definitely not advisable to blindly use hormones to promote height, and you must go to the hospital to find out the cause.