Health Tips on Growth of Child

Tips for growth of your child-
 

Hello friends, I am doctor IPS Kochar, pediatric and adolescent diabetologist. Today, I will be giving you some health tips first of all on growth. Growth is a very important parameter for children who are growing. A lot of parents are concerned if my child is growing well or not. When a newborn is born his height is around 50 cm and around two years his length is around 75cm at the age of approximately 1 year. When a child is 50 cm he grows by 25 cm first year and grows around 12.5 cm in the next year and another 6 cm every year. So he is about 100 cm at 4 years of age. If a child is growing less than 5 cm a year that is a little concern and the parents should worry about. If child is not gaining height properly in the sense the child is not having a change in dress in the last 1 year or if the shoe size is not increasing in the last 2 years, he is shortest in the class, he is being checked by the doctor and it is found that the growth is less. So these are the ways to pick up children who are not growing. There might be the complaint from his peer group that he is not being able to play with the rest of his friends. These are things one should be little concerned of if growth is not occurring properly.

Growth is also dependant on many factors. It depends on nutrition, sleeping pattern, parent’s height and other factors like hormones. If a child is not growing properly he should be consulted a pediatric endocrinologist, why he is not growing properly. The role of the parents in this is to make sure that the child is getting good nutrition, good sleep, good physical exercise will help a lot. When you are finding out that the child is not growing properly then you should measure and see if the child is growing less than 5 cm a year, that is a big concern. This is one parameter where the child is not growing.

There may be other reasons to it, may the parents are short, the child is short. It may be possible because of constitutional delay, that is when you have parents also who had their late bloomers, periods in the girl's matter came late in the mother or the beard and the moustache might have come late in the father. this is then called as a constitutional delay but the other factor is that the child having a systemic disease like a lung disease, git disease, growth hormone deficiency. So it is very important from the point of view of growth, one should monitor the child’s growth and the parents should be concerned whether my child is growing properly or not because people have only 1 to 2 children nowadays and they all want their children to grow tall and good. Height makes a lot of differences.

If your child is not growing properly you should consult an pediatric endocrinologist.

You can contact me via lybrate.