Short Stature in Children
(Growth Hormone Deficiency)
What is short stature?
Short stature is a height that's shorter than almost all other children of the same age and sex. Short stature doesn't always mean there's a problem. It's just a term doctors use when your child is shorter than all but 3% of children the same age and sex.
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Some short children are healthy but are just small or are taking longer to reach their full height
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Sometimes, children don't have enough growth hormone (growth hormone deficiency)
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Sometimes, children who have a serious illness do not grow normally
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If children don't have enough growth hormone, doctors give growth hormone shots
Short stature is not the same thing as dwarfism, which is also called osteochondrodysplasia. Children with dwarfism have a genetic disorder that causes abnormal growth and development of bone and cartilage in addition to short stature.
What causes short stature in children?
Often there's no specific cause for being short as a child, particularly when other people in the family are short or took a long time to reach their full height.
Specific causes include:
Growth hormone is a chemical messenger made in the pituitary gland in your brain. It signals all the tissues in your body to grow and develop. Most of the time, doctors don't know why a child doesn't have enough growth hormone. But sometimes it's caused by another health problem such as:
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Brain tumor or injury
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Radiation
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Infection, such as meningitis and tuberculosis
What are the symptoms of short stature in children?
How can doctors tell if my child has short stature?
Doctors will:
To find out what is causing your child's short stature, doctors may do:
Doctors do CT or MRI of the head to look for tumors or other problems with the gland that makes growth hormone (the pituitary gland).
