Short stature丨Pediatric guide
In the outpatient clinic, there is often such a scene: parents come with their children with hope to "increase height", but they are disappointed after hearing the results... Many of these situations are due to the fact that parents have many misunderstandings about short stature, which delays or misses the best period for children to grow taller.
1. Our parents are not short, how can children be short?
There are always such parents who ask: Our parents are not short, how can our children be short? But the result is not necessarily, in our daily life, we often see that two children born to parents in the same family have high and low conditions. This is because 70% of a child's height is determined by parental genetics, but 30% is affected by acquired factors.
1. Nutritional status
In particular, if the child has feeding difficulties before the age of 3, or the child is an excessive picky eater during the development period, it will also affect the child's height;
2. Disease
Some chronic diseases, such as chronic kidney disease, thalassemia, asthma, and heart disease, can cause children to grow shorter.
3. Exercise, sleep, psychology, etc
Children who lack exercise will grow more slowly than children who love to exercise, children who lack sleep will also slow down their growth rate because of the impact on their own growth hormone secretion, and in addition, the family environment is not harmonious, and the child's psychological health will also lead to the child not reaching the genetic height of the parents.
Second, the bone age of short children is still young, and it is not too late to treat them when they have developed
Before the epiphysis is not closed, people can always grow, but with the increase of age, the bone age is also increasing, when the bone age of girls is 14 years old, and boys are 16 years old, the epiphysis is basically closed, and there is no room for height to continue to grow.
Therefore, when a child is diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency, idiopathic short stature, intrauterine growth retardation, Turner's syndrome and other diseases by hospital doctors, it is necessary to intervene as soon as possible.
3. Children are growing up very fast now, and they will not be short when they grow up
Parents are medium-sized, and their children grow faster than other children before puberty, and careless parents may be quite happy, thinking that they will grow fast now, and they will definitely not be short in the future. Unbeknownst to them, growing taller in this case may mean that the child has precocious puberty.
There are many cases in the outpatient clinic that parents find that the girl has menstruation before the age of 10, and the boy in elementary school finds that he has changed his voice before bringing to see a doctor, at this time the child is indeed much taller than children of the same age, but the bone age has exceeded the age for 2-3 years, and even close to closure, and the growth potential is seriously impaired.
Therefore, when parents find that girls have breast enlargement before the age of 8, boys have testicular enlargement before the age of 9, and girls have menarche before the age of 10, and there is accelerated growth, they should come to the hospital to see a professional doctor in time.
Warm tips from Guangzhou Angel Children's Hospital
There are many reasons for children's short stature, and if you don't intervene in time, it may also affect your child's healthy growth. If the child's height and growth are abnormal, parents should bring the child to the children's specialist hospital for examination and intervention in time, and the earlier the intervention, the better the effect.