Delayed

This is a word we are not use to hearing about our dear daughter. She was born 5 weeks preterm but hit all of her milestones ahead of full term babies. She was walking by the time she was 10 months old. She was speaking in full sentences by 18 months. She could sing her abc's by 18 months. She was reading by age 4. At age 10 and in the 4th grade she is working on a 9th grade reading level. She is anything but delayed.

She has always been a tiny little thing. Previous to this year she was estimated to be between 5' - 5'2" at full adult height. That changed at this year's well baby appoint. (Yes, I still call it a well baby even though she is clearly not a baby anymore.) This year she had dropped on the curve and they said that at this rate she will only reach 4'9". Panic set in and we agreed to see the ednocrinologist.

Three weeks ago they ran all sorts of blood tests on her. They also did a bone age scan. This scan is just an x-ray of her left hand and wrist. From this scan they can tell what age her bones are. Apparently, bones are not necessarily the same age as the person is cronilogically. Yesterday we got the results back.

6 years 10 months. That is the age of our 10 year old daughter's bones. The good news with this is that she is the size of an average 7 year old so she is tall for her bone age. While this is the best news we could have received and what we were hoping for, the doctor is still concerned. He normally sees a bone age that is 1-2 years behind the cronilogical age. Being 3+ years behind is slightly worrisome for him. We now have a choice to make.

Her IGF-1 (human growth hormone in the liver proteins) level was at 91. Normal levels of this hormone in 10 year old girls is 120 or greater. Deficient levels in 10 year old girls is less than 60. So as you can see, she falls right smack dab in the middle of the gray area. She is neither deficient nor normal. We have to decide if we want to put her through further hormone testing or just let things go.

The hope is that with no intervention, she would reach her full expected adult height of 5'5-5'6 three years later than her peers. She will go through puberty three years later than her peers. (She'll be the flat chested girl all through high school.) The fear is that if we do nothing it affects not only her height as an adult but her ability to have children of her own (many, many, many years from now) as an adult. We still have a bunch of research to do to see if this is something we really need to look into. The height is not our main concern at this point. Even without intervention we are certain that she will hit 5' at a minimum. Our concern is other health issues that may be affected.

This whole "delayed" issue is certainly new territory to us.