Do you care about your child’s growth? It is really important because the final height of a child as an adult can be predicted at the age of two. Since many factors affect child growth, children should be monitored by a doctor at a regular interval to make sure that they grow up with proper care, and to solve any growth problem as soon as possible.
As it has been mentioned above, adult height of a child can be predicted by doubling child’s height at age two. In this case, boys are usually a little taller, and girls are a little shorter than that measure. Most healthy children grow steadily at a rate 2 inches per year up to a certain age, then their growth comes to a stop. Naturally, a child grows up at this rate until he or she reaches puberty.
They have a growth spurt during puberty, and within a short time their growth ends. During this time, as a part of growth, boys begin to start shaving, their voices deepen, and other physical changes occur. For girls, after their first menstrual cycle, they grow only about two inches. These are true for almost everyone unless he or she has any problem.
Now, you may notice that though everything else is going normal with your child, but it that seems he remains shorter than others. Well, one of the significant factor that plays an important role in child growth is genetics. Parents could be the best predictor of a child’s ultimate height. It is parents’ height that dominates a child’s height, specifically mid-parental height. It can be measured by summation of parents’ height, followed by adding 5 more for boys and subtracting 5 for girls. Then the total result is divided by two for getting the mid-parental height.
However, several physical and genetic disorders can affect adult height. Growth can be impeded by chronic illness. Some disorders that are specifically related to slowing down of child height are hormonal disorders such as, thyroid disease, growth hormone deficiency etc. and genetic disorders such as, down syndrome, turner syndrome etc. Also, any significant illness can also reduce the growth rate. Along with these, child growth can also be reduced by medications such as corticosteroids e.g. prednisone or cortisone, especially if used in high doses for long periods.
Being underweight is another cause that can influence the final height. It’s really a matter of fact if this happen at the stage of rapid growth, particularly in puberty and infancy. Normal growth during puberty may also be hampered due to eating disorders like anorexia. Unfortunately, growth boney plates are closed once puberty is completed, and as a result of it there’s no way to recuperate the missed growth.
Often, many parents think that by eating more, growth can be accelerated, but this is not true. Apparently, fatty children are often taller at early years because body’s bone maturation can be affected by obesity, causing more rapid growth at the younger age, but their growth is often ceased sooner than their fellows.
A healthy child has a growth rate more or less about 2 inches per year from age 2 to puberty. You should contact a physician if your child do not have that rate. Moreover, a healthy child should also be checked up by doctors at least every two years to make sure that child’s growth is normal. Otherwise it’ll be too late to solve child growth problem.