There are many reasons for short stature, here are only some of the more common ones.
1.Congenital genetic diseases
Many congenital hereditary diseases can cause short stature, the more common ones are as follows.
(1) Congenital chondrodysplasia
These children have short limbs, normal trunk, and disproportionate limbs since birth. Because of the slow growth rate, the gap between these children and children of the same age is getting bigger and bigger, which is a serious dwarfism.
(2) Congenital ovarian hypoplasia
These children are born with normal performance and gradually show slow growth, short stature, no female secondary sex characteristics, and special physical signs.
(3) Low blood phosphorus anti-D rickets
The child is normal at birth and gradually shows symptoms after one week of age, with slow growth and severe “O” shaped legs.
(4) Mucopolysaccharidoses
There are many types of mucopolysaccharidoses, many of which show short stature, but these children have other serious deformities in addition to short stature, and they are born normal, and gradually show symptoms after one week of age.
2. Chronic systemic diseases
Intestinal malabsorption syndrome, hypoxic congenital heart disease, renal dysplasia, etc.
3.Intrauterine growth retardation
Although the children are delivered at full term, they weigh less than 2.5 kg and some are less than 2 kg. They also tend to have slow growth and short stature after birth.
4.Familial dwarfism
The parents of the children are short and the short stature of these children is usually not serious, they are born normal and well-proportioned.
5.Nutritional deficiency dwarfism
The growth is slow due to insufficient nutritional intake for a longer period of time, and the growth will be accelerated if sufficient nutritional intake and reasonable diet structure are restored in time.
6.Psychological dwarfism
Due to the poor living environment, the child’s mental and psychological frustration, resulting in slow growth. As long as the unfavorable factors in the original living environment can be eliminated in time, significant height growth will occur after several months.
7.Physical growth delay
They have delayed puberty development and accelerated height growth until the puberty development period, with normal adult lifetime height.
8.Endocrine abnormalities
The following are common.
(1) Hypothyroidism
There are two types of children with hypothyroidism.
The first is hypothyroidism at birth, if left untreated, they will be short and stupid, commonly known as “cretinism”, and the second is hypothyroidism in childhood, with normal intelligence, mainly because they are short and easily missed. Thyroxine is very cheap and effective, but the key is early diagnosis.
(2) Growth hormone deficiency (pituitary dwarfism)
It is caused by a lack or deficiency of growth hormone produced by the pituitary gland (located at the base of the brain).
Pituitary dwarf caused by growth hormone deficiency is normal at birth, growth slows down after five months of life, and the slow growth increases with age. At 2 weeks of age, the performance is shorter than that of children of the same age, and later the gap becomes larger and larger, and the height growth is less than 4 cm a year, or only 2-3 cm in severe cases, so it is very short and manifests as severe dwarfism.