Days ago our colleagues Velsid told us about the concern that many parents have in relation to the height of their children.
These worried parents are always comparing their children with others, and the anguish is triggered when they see that their child is the youngest in the school line.
The size of each person is mainly influenced by genetics, and by a series of extragenetic factors, including food, diseases that may be suffered during the years of growth, lifestyle, etc.
Genetic inheritance is the factor that carries more weight not only in the final size, but also in the rate of bone maturation.
But, what happens when a child being within the normal percentiles grows slowly which we consider low? Late children are those with a slow growth pattern, they are normal children, but they grow more slowly than others.
The medical name for "tardis" children is "Constitutional Growth Delay", and does not represent a disease, but a peculiar form of development. These boys are usually born with a normal weight and height and, from 6-12 months, slow down the growth rate, placing themselves in the lowest values of the percentile graphs. This slowing is due to a slow maturation of the skeleton, so that bone age is lagging behind the chronological. At 4-5 years the delay is usually greater than 2 years. From that age, children grow back at a normal rate parallel to the 3rd percentile. Although they are short children, the size and growth rate are normal for bone age.
At 12 or 13 years of age, there is no acceleration of puberty growth, sexual maturation begins, nor does skeletal development progress, and size is again clearly removed from normal values for chronological age.
Finally, when the bone age is 12 to 13 years in boys and 10 to 12 years in girls, which usually happens between 16 and 19 years of age, pubertal changes occur and in the end it is reached, in the Most cases, a normal adult size.
They are those guys who suddenly hit a stretch. It is observed that around 80% of these children usually have a history of relatives with similar growth.
