Height Or Weight

[melblondin]

Hi all -

We're in the process (although the wheels seem to be moving very slowly) of trying to test for celiac disease in our family and one of my questions is should I be more concerned about my kids' height, weight, or both as far as celiac is concerned?

Both of my boys, now 5 and 3, started falling off the growth curves around 12 - 18 months, and we went to the doctor yesterday because my 5 year old wasn't feeling well (his well child is in 2 weeks when we'll talk about celiac) but they weighed him and in the last year he moved from the 25th in weight to the 10th percentile which means he's gone down again. He's not all that tall either, but they didn't take a measurement at this last visit. I guess I was just wondering if celiac presents more in the height of a child vs. the weight???

Thanks in advance!

By the way the referral for me to get my genetic testing done is in status pending as of today , so with any luck that will get approved and then I can finally see if anything is going on there for myself, which will in turn of course affect the kids.

[taweavmo3]

I know in our case, my daughter's weight dropped down before her height did. She first lost weight at her 18 month check up, she had lost 2 pounds. But, she had grown about 1/4 inch, so no red flags went up.

This went on for another 18 months, when at age 3, she still had not regained any weight, nor gained any height. It all depends on the doctor I think, ours were very laid back about it, since I'm small. I found out about Celiac on my own....her symptoms were so vague, and she never actually got sick, but at home she was miserable all the time.

Once she was dx'd and we went on the diet, her weight was also the first thing to come back. She really plumped up for a while (I loved it!), then she eventually grew a couple of inches as well and she evened out.

Good luck with everything! This is an excellent resource for the gluten free diet, it saved my life the 1st 6 months

[melblondin]

Thanks for your reply. We've kind of wondered what's been going on, but I'm also pretty small, so I know I'm not going to have huge kids or anything like that, but he went from the 80th percentile at 3 mths., down to the 65th or so at 6 mths., then to about the 20th at 1 year and maintained that percentile until now at 5 years where he's dropped to the 10th.

As for his height, he was in the 25th up until 3 years where he fell off the bottom of the chart into the range of about the 3rd percentile and then maintained that line at his 4 year check up so we'll see what his measurements are in a few weeks.

It all certainly makes me wonder as his brother did about the same thing and my 9 month old just dropped drastically in about a 5 month period of time. I show many symptoms myself, so this just might be a whole family affair! Hopefully answers will be coming soon.

[Terrified Mom]

My son's weight has always been around 50% higher than his height, except when there weren't enough percentage points to allow for 50%. At birth he was 50% (although 75% corrected for gest. age)/50%. At 5 weeks he was 75% (UNcorrected, so an obvious move UP)/95%. 6 months he was over 50%/95%. Now at 3 yrs he's 10%/little over 50%. Even though he went up before down, what gives me the greatest concern is that I'm 5'7" and his daddy is 6'5". I know there are genetic "throwbacks" sometimes, but in his daddy's family that would make for a 4 generation throwback. NO ONE has been under 6'3" in at least that many generations. In my family most of my cousins are over 6', including one my husband looks up to (that cousin is 6'9"). My paternal grandfather is short, but now I have to wonder if he was supposed to be considering the height in the family otherwise. Watching other *younger* kids catch and pass him in height has been disheartening as well. Yea, younger kids will surpass genetically shorter kids at some point, but it shouldn't be this young when the age difference is still comparatively substantial.

If your babies were born high on the charts and then settled into lower curves, that's fine and normal. It's when they go up or down and settle and then move AGAIN that it's a problem. Reason being for this is that pre-natal growth is not indicative of post natal growth. Babies born big will often go through a "catch down" growth pattern. Babies born small may go through a "catch up" growth pattern. It's expected there will be some movement up or down in the early months/first year. Again, once they seem to settle, that's where they *should* stay.

[buffettbride]

My daughter was short but not emaciated thin. She had a belly and was probably slightly overweight due to bloating. She didn't fit that uberskinny vision of Celiac. Her tushy is quite flat, though, to this day.