Constitutional Growth Delay Concerns

courtfsu

Hi Ladies,

I have not posted on the Bump in quite a while, but when this came up with my son I knew you ladies would be a wonderful resource.  Please help if you can.

At my son's 2 yr WCV the doctor expressed some concerns about his size.  After starting out in the 25th percentile, he has fallen continuously and now is at the 1st percentile for height and 25th for weight.  Both his dad and I are average height.  The doctor believes it to be constitutional growth delay, but is also testing him for Celiac's disease and Human Growth Hormone deficiency. 

Do any of you have experience with any of these?  If so what was the result?  If it was HGHD,  when did they start treatment?

His baby sister just went for her four month check up and is in the 90th percentile for height and weight. So we are at a loss.

Thanks in advance for your help:)

sugar212

my daughter has always been on the short end, especially after her first birthday. (she was born full term and 19", totally normal).  She totally fell off her growth chart on her 18 month check up. Her pedi. asked me to bring her in more frequently for growth checks because sometimes it is just human error. She is now 2 1/2 and is finally up to 9%, which is the highest she has been in a long time. I am not worried about it at all because my sister was the same way and people always asked her when she was going to grow. She shot up 4" just before high school and is now 5'9". I am 5'5" and my husband is 5'9", so nothing super tall. I guess even if my daughter was super short I would not want to give her growth hormones. 

courtfsu

Thanks for your response.  I agree, if it were just a matter of being "short"  I would probably let it be.  However, there are ties between a HGH deficiency and cardiovascular problems.  I think he will catch up.  He won't ever play for the NBA, but that's okay:)  On the track he's going, he'll be the cutest little race car driver on 4 wheels.  We shall see what the doctors say.

frenziedmomma

First just let me say that I understand how stressful it can be when doctors start questioning you about your child's size and wanting to run tests. I don't know about the HGH test specifically  but DS was born at about 25 percentile for both height and weight but quickly dropped to 2-4th percentile for weight and was (and still is) considered underweight. 

For about the first 18 months of his life  we had to go in for a lot of weight checks to make sure that he did not continue to fall further down the curve. Even though DS managed to stay at the 4th percentile for weight, the pedi ran a whole bunch of blood tests at his 2 yr well visit. It included things like celiac, thyroid disorders, and many more which all came back negative (I'm actually not sure about HGH though). The doctor, I believe, was just being cautious and thorough. I assume there could still be an issue that crops up in the future but for now we are really just in a "wait and see mode". 

I would encourage you to let the pedi run tests to rule out certain disorders or conditions including HGH deficiency. Actually having the tests done reduced my stress greatly even if they did not illuminate the reason for him being so underweight.