In the growth and development clinic, parents often ask doctors such questions:
My child is 7 years old, but when examined, it was found to be 9 years old. Is it [precocious]?
The child used to grow well, but why didn’t he grow well later? Will it affect the final height?
In case of these problems, doctors will evaluate the child and comprehensively judge whether the child’s growth and development are at a normal level. In this process, bone age has an important reference role.
What is bone age?
Human growth and development can be expressed by two [ages], namely physiological age (calendar age) and biological age (bone age).
Bone age is the bone age, which is a development age obtained by comparing the actual development degree of children’s bones with the standard development degree. It can reflect the real development level of children to a large extent.
Usually when measuring bone age, X-rays of the child’s left wrist should be taken, and doctors determine the bone age according to the development degree of some bones in the left hand.
Bone age can reflect the level of development and maturity
Bone age can not only determine the approximate range of children’s physiological age, but also understand children’s growth and development level, sexual maturity trend and height growth space as early as possible through bone age.
When visiting the children’s endocrinology department, the specialist will know the child’s current height and bone age, and then predict the child’s adult height by referring to the [normal child’s bone age height graph].
Determination of bone age is of great help in the diagnosis of endocrine diseases in children. Under normal circumstances, the bone age of children is consistent with the actual age or fluctuates up and down by no more than 1 year old.
Bone age less than actual age may be related to delayed physical development, growth hormone deficiency, hypothyroidism, etc. Bone age greater than actual age may be caused by precocious puberty, adrenal diseases, etc.
What happened to the children in the previous question?
Returning to the opening question, The question actually refers to children who [start puberty too early] and [grow too fast], Their bone age is often older than the actual age, this kind of bone age advance is due to the early start of puberty, sex hormone secretion increases triggered. Sex hormones have obvious role in promoting epiphysis closure, increasing bone age, if the epiphysis is completely closed, the child’s growth potential will disappear.
When clinically encountered growth retardation or early children, doctors will measure bone age and other predictions of adult height, combined with medical history and related examinations to help diagnose. Some children may need to be hospitalized for 1-2 days for further examination, and then the doctor will judge whether they need to be treated.
Understand the basic knowledge of development
If parents are really worried about their children’s height, they should go to a regular children’s endocrinology specialist and do growth monitoring under the guidance of doctors, which can avoid short stature caused by developmental disorders to the greatest extent.
A person’s height depends on many factors such as heredity, nutrition and endocrine. Under normal circumstances, height growth has two peaks, the first peak is from birth to the age of 3, and the second peak is puberty.
Parents understand the law of some children’s height growth, which is helpful to discover children’s abnormalities at an early stage and take timely measures.
Attached: The Growth and Development Law of Normal Children
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When the baby is born, the average length is about 50cm.
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Infant period (from birth to one year old): It is the fastest growing period of the child, about 25cm/year, with the body length increasing by about 12.5 cm in the first three months after birth and reaching about 75cm at the age of one.
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Early childhood (1 ~ 3 years old): 10 ~ 12cm/year. At the age of 2, the body length reaches 85 ~ 87cm; At the age of 3, the body length is about 95 ~ 97 cm.
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From the age of 3 to the early youth: the height increases by about 5 ~ 6 cm every year.
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Adolescence: The height increases by not less than 7cm per year. If the height increases too much and too fast every year, one should be alert to the advance of bone age.
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Signs of initiation of youth development: girls, breast induration; In boys, the testicular volume increased to more than 4 mL.