Many times we listen to the parents of short children complain because they are the smallest in the class. This is a situation that frequently worries parents more and that sometimes it can reach alter a child's self-esteem, when it occurs in childhood and adolescence.
Not all children who are short in stature have a growth problemSometimes parents take it for granted that it is not normal for them to be the shortest in their class, but it should be clear to us that not all children should be like Pau Gasol, that all life has been taller and shorter people and That is no problem.
exist normal growth standards already established for each population (percentiles), where the height of children is compared at different times of their development. It is the pediatrician who must establish, through periodic reviews, the rate at which each child grows since only then, it is possible to detect which children are having a real growth problem.
can we talk about Two issues in this aspect that would be the short family size and the constitutional growth and development delay.
At first case, it would be those children who actually have a family member, usually the father or the mother, with short stature, but who increases progressively in an adequate manner. At second case, there are children who only suffer a delay in their growth, there is a slower biological clock of maturation, but they reach this maturity at later ages.
The usual causes of growth arrest they are the common diseases of childhood and among them, chronic malnutrition, parasitosis, chronic respiratory diseases such as bronchial asthma, chronic infections, gastrointestinal disorders that affect the absorption of food, or even depressive or affective deprivation states in Children can cause slow and abnormal growth.
Too more severe disorders, such as defects in the function of the thyroid gland, abnormalities in hormones that participate in the sexual development of a teenager, and serious alterations in the growth hormone system. All these diseases require specialized studies performed by a pediatric endocrine.
In recent years, the employment of the growth hormone, as a treatment for children with short stature, has gained great boom, although it is essential to mention that hormone is extremely effective in treating the child with severe growth disorders, it is not in children with other causes of short stature, so its use must be very careful, restrict exclusively to patients with these diagnoses and be valued only by doctors with extensive experience in its use.
One thing we must be clear about is that, for the proper growth of children, specialists recommend the practice of physical exercise continuously and a healthy and varied nutrition.
