[Children with body length deficiency at birth and at risk of growth deficiency since childhood]

Abstract

Every year a several percent of newborns is affected with deficient body size, in some of these cases can be identified growth disorders, for examples Turner's Syndrome, Noonan Syndrome, idiopathic growth hormone deficiency. Clinical records of such newborns, aimed at monitoring their growth, do not exist so far. Screening for body size deficiencies requires only that the measurements of body length and mass be appropriately performed and this would be much less costly than screenings for congenital metabolic diseases. These recommendations are supported by the fact that in recent decades the risk of growth disorders and/or short stature (body height below -2 SDS upon full skeletal maturity) of children with deficient body size at birth is 5- to 7-fold higher than in those with normal body size relative the time of delivery. Moreover, in the former newborns the risk of behavioural/psychosocial disorders, hypertension, CHD, Type 2 diabetes and several other hormonal disorders were shown to be also higher than in the "normal"-born ones. The number of the so afflicted individuals and costs of potential therapies evidence the indispensability of a widespread detection of deficient body size at birth and a subsequent growth monitoring consisting of measuring body length/height 4 times in the course of the first year of life and twice a year thereafter.