[delilahdr]

Has anyone dealt with this issue? I am pretty horrified at the idea of daily growth hormone injections for years... on the other hand, I am not sure that letting my child grow up a midget/dwarf/little person or whatever, when I had the choice not to do so, would be something she would thank me for later either.

She is 15.5 months, 27.75" long and 17 lbs and still wearing some of her 3-6 month clothing, although much of the 6-9 is finally fitting (when she doesn't crawl out of it). She was 8 lbs 8 oz at birth...

Her bloodwork done by my son's pediatric endocrinologist (great, now two of my three kids need a PE...! ack!) this week showed an IGF-1 of 28, with the normal range being 51-303. The nurse's office said with such a broad range of normal, usually even if a child were in the normal range but at the bottom, they would still recommend probing a bit further- and Virginia's numbers were obviously far below even that broad range.

Has anyone experienced this? We go for a growth hormone stimulation test in less than two months- by that point, I need to have a fair idea what I want to do/am willing to do, depending on what the tests show...
Delilah

 

[3boobykins]

DS is 4, and very small for his age. He was born with IUGR (intrauterine growth restriction), and 3lbs. 5 oz, 16 in, full term, cause unknown. He has remained small all along, after a pretty rapid weight gain in the beginning. He's never been above the 5th percentile on the charts. At 4 he weighs 28 lbs and is 37 in. tall.

We haven't visited any specialists at this point. We don't have health insurance right now, so can't afford to do so. We have a naturopath, who mentioned the possibility of growth hormone at some point, depending upon his growth as the years go by. He recommended starting with a bone age screening at some point (x-ray of the hand), and then going on from there to test for gh deficiency. He said he's wait until puberty to do synthetic growth hormone, if we do end up doing it, so ds would have natural hormones working for him as well. We won't do any of this until we have insurance, though. For now we're not worrying about it. He's meeting all his developmental milestones and has amazing energy.

It's pretty common for people born IUGR to be smaller adults, so his slow growth isn't abnormal for his low birth weight status. I'm hoping he begins to catch up at some point. Dh was small for his age for a long time but ended being a six footer.

Good luck to you! Would your insurance pay for the hormones, since this is probably a medical condition and not just a case of you wanting a basketball player? I've heard they can be outrageously expensive otherwise.

 

[delilahdr]

Yes, insurance would pay for it, it's just do we WANT it, you know? I'm wondering what we might be dealing with if we forego it... how small is small, you know? IF she were going to be 4'11" or 5'0" without it, I might just blow it off. But if she were going to be 4'2" without it... well, that's different.

Good luck to you and your son!!!
Delilah

 

[mamaliss]

one of my children is and always was barely in the fifth percentile , we are not at all worried either.

 

[3boobykins]

Delilah,

Yeah, it's kind of a tough call. I worry about side effects of synthetic growth hormones. But we're letting it go for now. I guess we'll see how ds grows until he nears puberty and then think about it. We have to wait until we have insurance to do any testing, so it won't be a prexisting condition (that we're fully aware of, anyway). I don't think we could afford it w/o insurance. DS will also be able to have some say in it as he gets older.