Don’t miss the best time to treat your child’s short stature
According to the newspaper, 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 more than 160,000 every year. The prevalence rate among children aged 5 to 14 is 3%. Patients with short stature often have certain diseases that can affect their lifelong height and quality of life if not treated early.
Parents must be good monitors of their children’s growth and development. 2 to 13 years old is the prime time to treat short stature. Once the child’s epiphysis closes, parents can only regret for life. However, many parents do not know that their children need to consult a doctor to find out the cause of their short stature. They think that their children may “grow late” and leave their children’s height to time, or spend money on nutrition and so-called height-enhancing devices for their children.
These blind measures often delay the treatment and even backfire. In fact, the growth and development of children need to be monitored regularly by parents, and if the child is found to be less than 2 standard deviations higher than the average height of children of the same sex and age around them, or suffers from other growth and development diseases, they should be seen by a specialist medical institution in time to find out the cause as soon as possible.
Causes of short stature of children
1. Short stature can be caused by lack of or insufficient secretion of growth hormone. The most common cause of short stature (growth hormone deficiency is usually referred to as dwarfism) is that if no growth hormone treatment is given, the child’s adult height will only be about 1.30 meters.
2. Genetic factors. Genetic factors play a role in 80% of a child’s height, while only 20% is due to external causes. In addition, there are physical puberty delay, and other endocrine diseases, etc.
3, intrauterine growth retardation. Intrauterine growth retardation refers to newborns whose birth weight is below the 10th percentile of the average weight for the same gestational age, and nearly one-third of the affected children have persistent growth retardation after birth, resulting in short stature in adulthood. The children present with growth lag and growth hormone deficiency, and the cognitive development of these children will be affected if they are not treated in time.
4. Precocious puberty leads to short height of children. In the early stage of precocious puberty, due to the early secretion of sex hormones, the growth rate is significantly faster than that of children of the same age and gender, and the height increases significantly, and the bone age is earlier than the actual age. However, due to the stimulation of sex hormones, the epiphysis closes early and the normal growth time that the child should have is greatly shortened, resulting in short stature in adulthood.
Time is of the essence for treatment
According to research, some children who are below normal height can be injected with recombinant human growth hormone to reach their potential genetic height. Treatment should be given before it is too late, and time is of the essence. The earlier the treatment, the more active the proliferation and differentiation of the cartilage layer of the epiphysis, the greater the potential and space for growth, the more sensitive the child is to treatment, and the better the growth effect.
Genetic predisposition is not the only determinant of height
Why do some children grow so much during the growth period, while others do not grow at all or grow very slowly? Why are they ahead in learning, but behind in height?
Here is an example of why children are short: the father’s height is 162 cm and the mother’s height is 152 cm, but their child grows to 182 cm. Many people will ask how is this possible? In fact, a large number of people still have the old idea that genetic factors play a decisive role in the child’s height, so most of the parents of the child will take a “resigned” attitude.
In fact, heredity is not the only determinant of height. For example, children’s growth rate is also closely related to endocrine, living habits and nutritional status. In other words, if the acquired factors are well controlled, the child can grow 10 cm to 20 cm more.
According to statistics, annual growth rate below 5 cm before puberty and below 7 cm (girls) or 9 cm (boys) during the rapid growth period of youth can be considered as excessive growth retardation. However, many parents lack this knowledge. Only a small percentage of parents were aware that this could be caused by certain diseases. Nearly half of the parents interviewed attributed their child’s short stature to “late growth” and “picky eating”.
Parents are advised to pay close attention to their children’s growth process and create conditions for their children in terms of diet, exercise and sleep to better promote their growth and development. In terms of diet, it is recommended to increase fish, milk, eggs, meat, beans and other foods rich in protein and lecithin to facilitate brain development and body growth; also eat more fresh vegetables and fruits to facilitate metabolism and bone growth.
Try to increase the opportunity for your child to participate in outdoor exercise, choose sports that are suitable for height growth and aerobic exercises that can guarantee the intensity of the exercise. At the same time, children’s growth and development is also closely related to sleep. The peak of growth hormone secretion occurs in deep sleep, so teenagers in the growth period should arrange their homework reasonably, exercise appropriately during the day, and never stay up late.
Dwarfism can also be improved by certain means. First of all, a series of related examinations should be done: including routine examination, thyroid function, growth hormone, chromosome examination, bone age and pterionic saddle X-ray, other special examinations, etc. Once diagnosed, growth hormone can be injected regularly to promote linear bone growth, and this is currently the only medicine to promote linear bone growth. Only early detection and early treatment as possible will be more effective.
Parents are caught off guard by early development of children
Recently, there has been a significant increase in the number of children visiting the clinic for problems such as precocious puberty and dwarfism. In recent years, the development of children has generally advanced and the incidence of precocious puberty in children has increased significantly, which has become one of the most common diseases seen in pediatric endocrinology clinics.
On the one hand, the early development of children is due to factors such as improved living standards and better nutrition, which tend to accelerate the growth and development of children; on the other hand, the influence of psychosocial factors, such as the influence of various media such as television and newspapers on children’s sexual content, promotes the early activation of the hypothalamus, pituitary gland and gonadal axis. In addition, pollution in the environment such as plastic products and detergents, additives in food and the application of hormones in animal husbandry are important factors that promote premature development in children.
Early and accelerated sexual development implies a shortening of the growth period and accelerates early bone age, which affects the final height of the child. It is often the case in clinical practice that by the time a child is found to be short, many children have already lost the opportunity for treatment due to accelerated bone age, causing premature epiphyseal closure. To grasp a child’s growth spurt during puberty, one should understand the child’s sexual development during puberty.
For example, when puberty begins around the age of 8 to 9, girls should pay attention to the development of their breasts and boys should pay attention to the development of their external genitalia. Once a child is found to have signs of early development, he or she should be seen in a hospital to delay the onset of puberty through treatment.
Short children should be treated before puberty
Nowadays, parents pay considerable attention to the height of their teenagers. Many parents are worried because their children are short or grow slowly, and some teenagers are eager to learn about ways to grow taller. As individual children with short stature miss the best treatment period, they are chagrined that they cannot achieve height increase. Short children are perfectly capable of achieving height increase through scientific treatment, but they should grasp the golden period and should be treated before puberty.
There are many factors that affect a child’s height, including intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Genetics is a very important intrinsic factor. The characteristics and potential of a child’s growth and development are influenced by genetic characteristics such as race, stature and appearance of the parents. Genetic disorders either chromosomal aberrations or metabolic defects have an impact on growth and development.
The function of endocrine glands plays an important role in growth and development, with the thyroid, pituitary and gonads playing a particularly prominent role. Hypothyroidism and slow basal metabolism can cause short stature and mental retardation; hypopituitary insufficiency and growth hormone deficiency can cause pituitary dwarfism; gonadal endocrine secretion promotes epiphyseal closure and affects height. Those who start puberty earlier are shorter than those who start later.
The nutritional status of the mother during pregnancy, illness, and the living environment all have an important impact on the growth of the fetus. Intrauterine growth disorders affect the height of the child after birth and can even be lifelong.
Among the various external factors, nutrition has the most important impact on growth and development. The younger the child, the greater the influence of nutrition. Among the various nutrients, in addition to protein, fat and carbohydrates, trace elements and vitamins also have an impact on growth. Zinc deficiency can cause growth retardation and anorexia. Bone growth requires adequate calcium, phosphorus and trace amounts of magnesium and manganese.
Iron is necessary for hemoglobin, and anemia slows growth. Iodine is necessary for the synthesis of thyroid hormone, which has an important impact on physical growth. Vitamin A deficiency can make bones short and thick and affect height. Vitamin D deficiency causes insufficient bone calcification causing softening and bending of the bone and short stature.
Acute infections often cause weight loss, while recurrent infections and chronic diseases affect both weight and height growth. The influence of living environment on children should not be ignored. A good living environment, sufficient sunlight, fresh air, physical exercise, games and education play an important role in promoting children’s height.
Treatment for short children to grow taller should be carried out before puberty, if the epiphysis is closed it cannot grow again. Doctors determine the causes of short stature and determine the principles of treatment through a comprehensive analysis of the child’s medical history, physical and laboratory results.