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Children fail to grow for a variety of reasons. Growth hormone deficiency is only one possible cause. Other vital hormones such as thyroid or insulin-like growth factor also play important roles in a child’s growth. Genetics, sleep, nutrition and exercise are also factors for normal growth.
If a child is growth hormone deficient or failing to grow due to an underlying medical problem, his or her visible growth failure means that other more serious (non-visible) things are going on inside the body. Those “invisible” factors are our focus and concern. Height (too much at a young age or too little) is simply something we can see to warn us that something may be going wrong. It is nature’s early warning signal- an alarm for parents to take their child to the physician.
Many conditions which interfere with children’s growth are treatable.
Insulin, growth hormone, thyroid hormone, and now insulin-like growth factor are medications which are as close to nature as possible. Children with a wide range of growth deficiencies (such as Turner Syndrome, Russell-Silver Syndrome, Intrauterine Growth Retardation – Small for Gestational Age births have had wonderful results thanks to growth hormone and other treatments. Each week we hear from parents about the short people in their family, and this is absolutely a factor to consider. However, scientists have now discovered a few genes which are responsible for growth failure.