The growth of a child is like a bud in the soil, which needs careful care, not only a good diet, sleep and exercise, but also regular monitoring of the growth situation, which is a long-term process.
If you ignore management, you will miss the best period of growth. Moreover, growth is only once, the longer the time missed, the farther away from the ideal height will be, it is difficult to make up!
But the child’s height growth is not in a hurry, we must understand that the growth and development of children is regular, each age has a corresponding growth rate, too fast or too slow is not conducive to the healthy growth of children.
Determinants of height in children:
“Seven days are destined, three points rely on struggle”, 60%-70% of human height is determined by congenital, that is, the genetic height of the child. But it is not that the parents are not ideal height, and the child is destined to be short.
Because there are 30%-40% acquired factors, firmly grasp this 30%-40% can also counterattack to achieve their ideal height.
What is bone age?
Bone age, that is, the age of the bone, is determined according to the time of the specific X-ray images of each ossification center at different ages, which represents the developmental age.
The smaller the bone age, the greater the growth potential. The older the bone, the less the growth potential. But that doesn’t mean that younger bone age is better. In general, bone age is consistent with the actual age or slightly different, the normal difference should not exceed 1 year, if more than 2 years to consider pathological factors.
Relationship between height and bone age
When bone age is more than one year older than actual age:
It indicates that the bone path has grown beyond the normal range, and this situation is premature development, which is likely to suffer from precocious puberty. Precocious children in the body of sex hormones will be secreted in advance, and then produce adverse bone stimulation, resulting in excessive bone growth. The height of these children will have a period of sudden increase, the height of the primary school is obviously much higher than that of their peers, but the development rate of junior high school is significantly slower, and the height is gradually overtaken by their peers. Due to older bone age, the epiphyseal line will close prematurely, resulting in shortened growth space and unsatisfactory height in adulthood.
When bone age is younger than actual age:
If the bone age is too small, and the difference between the actual age is more than two years, this is a growth retardation, may have growth hormone deficiency or hypothyroidism and other endocrine diseases. Without attention to treatment, height is often difficult to achieve the ideal state.
The importance of bone age testing:
What do you know about regular bone age tests?
1.Predict the exact height of the child as an adult.
2.Know the true level of the child’s height and height, and make plans according to the true level of the child.
3.Whether the child is precocious or late maturing.
4.Whether the child is likely to get fat.
5.Height can develop better later.
What diseases do the children have now and how can they be further treated?
Under what circumstances should bone age be checked?
1.Precocious puberty: girls before 7.5 years of age, boys before 9 years of age appear secondary sexual characteristics (girls’ starting point of development is breast enlargement or swelling pain; Boys are more insidious, showing increased testicular volume). Or when a girl begins menarche before the age of 10.
2. Nanosomia: In a similar living environment, the height of individuals of the same race, gender and age is 2 standard differences below the average height of the normal population, or below the 3rd percentile.
3. Tall: more than the same race, the same sex and the same age of the normal population average height of the two standard difference.
4. Late development: girls have no breast development at the age of 13, no menstruation at the age of 15, and boys have testicles less than 4ml at the age of 14.
5. The height growth rate is too slow: the height growth before the age of 3 is less than 7cm/ year, the height growth during puberty is less than 6cm/ year, and the height growth from the age of 3 to adolescence is less than 5cm/ year.
6. There are also those whose height is far from the curve of the genetic target height, slow development, abnormal body proportion, special facial and skeletal deformities and some diseases, auxiliary examination and curative effect evaluation.
Finally, backward bone age does not mean that the child is late, too much backward bone age must be clearly checked in the hospital to find the reasons for the child’s backward bone age, in order to carry out targeted treatment, do not miss the treatment opportunity in blindly waiting for “late”.
Post time: Mar-07-2025