When do you need to worry ?

• If the child is very short / tall for the parental height range.
• If you notice the rate of growth is very slow.
• No change in size of shoes or clothes over a year.

All children should be monitored for normal growth and plotted on the growth charts, so that the parents and the doctors can follow their growth pattern. There are several causes for the child not gaining height despite eating well. The possible diagnosis could be :

• Low birth weight babies
• Syndromes in children/ Genetic causes
• Bone dysplasia
• Endocrine causes
• Chronic ill health
• Constitutional Delay in growth and puberty

Once a correct diagnosis is made then there are different modalities for managing it. There are bio-synthetic growth hormones available which are FDA approved and used very widely all over the world for treatment of short stature.