As a parent, do you know if your child’s height is within the normal range? Do you know how much your child should grow each year from birth to adolescence to be considered normal? How to take care of your child in order to make him grow up healthily?
The final height of human body is inseparable from genetic, environmental, nutritional, exercise, sleep and psychosocial factors. Ge Zhenhua, Department of Pediatrics, Nantong City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Below is a list of several questions that many parents are concerned about, with detailed answers indicated
1. How do I know if my child is short now?
The guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of dwarfism state that: 1. Height is less than 2 standard deviations from the average height of the same race, age and sex.
2. Annual growth rate is less than 5cm.
Simply put, if parents find that their child is the shortest child of the same gender in the class, or has an annual growth height of less than 5 cm, they should consider that their child may have a growth disorder.
2.What harm will be caused by short children?
1. Inferiority complex, which affects children’s healthy physical and mental growth and their intellectual development.
2. Lack of courage to communicate with others or actively participate in social activities, reducing the chances of success in career.
3. The scope of future employment is limited.
3.My child is short now, but others say it will be “late growth” and will grow taller in the future
Many parents and friends find that their babies are not tall and think it is “late growth”, so they do not go to the hospital in time to investigate the cause, so they often miss the best time for treatment! Nowadays, children develop much earlier than the previous generation, and “late growth” refers to the delayed development of puberty, so that children with normal or slightly short height before puberty only appear shorter when they reach puberty age, when other children have developed but they have not. Although some people do not meet the diagnostic criteria of short, they may just be younger and have a gap with their peers is not big enough. Most people with dwarfism have a normal height before they turn one year old, and only after that do they slowly close the gap with their peers. Therefore, regular review is necessary!
What are the factors related to the growth of children?
In addition to genetic factors, the growth of a child is mainly due to growth hormones. Generally speaking, good sleep and proper exercise help to grow taller. This is because the secretion of growth hormone is pulsatile, and it is secreted three times more in the sleep state than in the waking state, so sufficient sleep is beneficial to growth; meanwhile, exercise can also stimulate the secretion of growth hormone, especially bouncing exercise, stretching exercise and whole body exercise. However, sleep and exercise do not increase genetic height, but only allow the genetic potential to be maximized. And this is only effective for children with normal growth hormone secretion, if growth hormone secretion is impaired, sleep and exercise will not improve their height. Therefore, if parents find that their children are growing slowly, they should go to the hospital early for examination.
Early treatment is crucial
Some parents think that their children are “late growing”, so they blindly wait for their children to grow, and as a result, they miss the best treatment period. Some parents don’t take their children for checkups, thinking that their children’s slow growth is due to insufficient nutrition, and use health supplements at will. Some of these supplements can cause the epiphysis to close early, which can reduce the final height of the child. Dwarfism is a disease, and it is fundamental to identify the cause and treat the cause. According to a survey, 70% of parents in China do not know that their children’s short stature may be caused by diseases.
There are various causes of dwarfism, endocrine diseases, familial dwarfism, institutional growth and developmental delay, chromosomal abnormalities, etc.
Pay attention to the signs of slow growth in children
Children grow in a regular pattern, with the fastest growth rate during puberty. After puberty, the bones mature and the epiphysis closes, the height stops growing and no more methods can make the child continue to grow taller. As the best time to treat the child is missed, many parents have to regret for life. This requires parents to pay close attention to their children’s growth and to detect the signs of slow growth in time.
● Children’s growth rate is less than 7 cm/year until the age of 3 ● Less than 5 cm/year from the age of 3 to puberty ● Less than 6 cm/year during puberty
In fact, with the development of medicine, childhood dwarfism can be treated. Through growth hormone replacement therapy, many children with dwarfism can experience rapid catch-up growth and reach a more desirable height.
Misconceptions that should be avoided when children are found to be short
1. Blind waiting of parents: When children are found to be short in stature, parents just blindly think that they grow late, not from a scientific point of view. In fact, the current generation of children’s living environment and nutritional status are very different from their previous generation, and simple “late growth” is not common anymore. Children with short stature should not wait blindly, so as not to delay the time of treatment.
Parents blindly listen to the propaganda of height increasing products in the market, choose some “height increasing drugs” and “height increasing equipment”, and wait until the effect is not good before going to a specialist, which often accelerates the closure of the bones and misses the best time for treatment.
3, parents blindly consult: many parents find that their children’s growth and development problems, do not know where to go for medical consultation, often to find some informal hospitals, non-specialist doctors to consult. As medical specialties become more and more refined, non-specialist doctors often give inappropriate guidance, which delays the timing of treatment and even brings adverse consequences.
Therefore, children who are short in stature should go to a regular hospital to consult a child growth and development specialist as soon as possible to clarify the causes of short stature and provide timely treatment.