Height And Wieght

[deb.h.]

my daughter is 5 years old. turned five in May. she is 3 feet 5 inches tall and weighs between 30 and 31 pounds. Everyone says she is so tiny all the time and that she never seems to grow. does this seem small or short and is the weight too little. I knw she is gluten intolerant( just found out) and that she is intolerant of eggs milk and yeast. Now I am wondering if this is why she is so small. Are these measurements abnormal or are my friends crazy. My doctor has never said a thing.

[scaredparent]

Are you and her father tall? My daughter who doesn't have celiac disease is about 43 inches and weighes 41 lbs and she just turned 4 in June. My husband and I are very tall and she was at about the 75 percential at her 4 yr check up. Children with celiac disease or glutten intollerance can be small. She might be a little small but is about the right height. My son had a glutten intollerance and he has been gluten-free since Feb and when we started he weighed 20 lbs and was 26 inches tall. 7 mo latter he weighs 26 lbs and is 35 inches tall. If she is small now after going gluten-free you will see her grow a lot. There is alot of good advice here on this website. Just watch for hidden glutten and good luck. She will grow and eventually catch up. (It is a good thing you caught this early).

[Canadian Karen]

Hi Debbie,

Boy, do I know how you feel. My 6 yr old daughter just won't grow either!!! Although she doesn't have celiac (yet, I had her tested about 1 yr ago), she has always been in the lowest 10th percentile from birth and still is in the lowest 10th percentile. Her pediatrician says he is not too worried though - he would worry if she were in the 50th percentile, then started dropping..... He says she is just going to always be petite...... (which for me, is really difficult to wrap my head around - I am the shortest in my family and I am 5'9", hubby is also 6 ft, and our oldest daughter who is 11 yrs old is already 5'8" and weighs around 120 lbs (we are are big boned and solidly built.....) So where Rhiannon came from, I dunno - it must be some recessive gene from 9 generations back or something!!!!

Karen

[deb.h.]

My daughter last night was up screaming in pain. she had leg pains as she gets at times when I Believe she is growing. She has been hurting herself from small accidents at least 20 timesa day or more for a couple of weeks now, eating like a horse and crying all the time. These are are all normal growing behaviours aren't they? I am wondering if the gluten dairy egg and yeast have anything to do with it but I hate thinking all the time that it is always these things when it could be as simple as growing. She has grown an inchthough since april.

I was going to start the gluten-free diet the beginning of September but have decided to wait until my husbands results come back ina few weeks

Does anyone else's children exprience the horrible leg pains when they are gowing? and if so what do you do for it. i used a liquid cla/mag by SAlus and they seemed to help within minutes. My husband said he ahd them all them time growing up.

[deb.h.]

oh yes I forgot to answer the question about size in my family. I am 5'5" and my husband is 6'. people in my family materal are a little taller than average and slim and paternal are average. Mum is 5'5" and dad is 5'10"

[Guest Lucy]

My neice gets horrible leg pains at night when she growing.

I was always very petite as a child. Everyone called me shorty. Then in 7th grade I shot up and became the tallest girl in my class.

My daughter is 5.5 years old and is 42" and 40lbs. No celiac. I wouldn't worry. There are plenty of girls taller than her, and some shorter too.

My son who DOES have celiac and just turned 3 last month is 36" tall and weighs 47lbs.

As long as she is treating her gluten intolerance now with a gluten free diet, you should see a growth spurt. There is really nothing else you can do.

[Mjohnson73]

Well... my little guy Alan is almost 6 (He will be 6 September 22) and he has not been on the growth chart since he was 9 months old (right about when I Started feeding him Gluten)... and he is now 3' 3" tall and weighs 34.5 pounds... he is the "Average" height of a 3 year old.... my Daughter who is almost 3 (she will be 3 in January) is only 3 inches shorter than him and weighs almost as much as him...) People can not believe they are 3 years apart...

I personally am 5'8" and my hubby is 5'6" but they don't think it is that.... they don't know why he is so short and little, I am suspecting Celiac (due to other symptoms as well as the short stature)

--Maya

[rgeelan]

Seriously I would look at her growth chart and see if she is on the same curve as always or if she has dropped. It wasn't until my son stopped growing and lost weigh that his doctors took me seriously about him being sick and finally ran tests. He was always 90% or above in height and weight and had dropped to 90% in height but 75% in weight just after age 3. My daughter on the other hand has never seen much over 50% in height or over 25% in weight! She has had some major dips though and we are now suspecting she may be Celiac as well and her Dairy issues probably were never outgrown... We are going to have her tested 9/1 to confirm our suspicions.

Yes parental height can have something to do with a childs height but it isn't always after the parents. I am 5'9" and my DH is 6'6" We figure that is why William has always been so tall and expect he will be about the same height as DH as an adult. Emma on the other hand is very petite and we figure she takes after out grandparents who are all no taller than 5'5" (with the exception of my maternal grandfather who was 6'2"). Genetics can go back 6 generations...

Good luck!

[lbsteenwyk]

Debbie:

I looked at your daughter on a standard growth chart. She is at the 25th percentile for height, but at only the 3rd percentile for weight. If she has been on the lower end of the growth charts all along, this may not be of much concern, but if you've been seeing a steady decline over the past year or two, I think this indicates a problem. Anything below the 5th percentile for weight should cause your doctor to investigate further.

[ryebaby0]

It is very difficult to get doctors excited about percentiles -- after all, being short or small is not a medical problem. It's _falling_ through the normal-for-you percentiles that should be a flag. So if she was always at 20%, and now is at 5%, something might be up.

Has her zinc level been tested? We found out in hospital that a zinc deficiency (which our son had) will stop a child's growth. He was on zinc supplements (a liquid, no, it doesn't taste so good) for 4 months, and has grown about 4.5" in the past 6 months (but he's 12, so maybe it was just good timing). He had always been small, but now is in the 50th ....

As for the leg cramps --- sometimes that's a sign of minor dehydration. Have her drink more water and see if that helps...

Joanna

[KaitiUSA]

Cramps can also be a sign of lack of calcium..she may want to get her vitamins and minerals tested. In celiacs they can be deficient due to malabsorption.

[deb.h.]

Shae has always been very tiny and my doctor has never said a thing. My however told me that I was tiny like her. I do beleive that is has partly to with the glutenand other sensitivities and possibbly defeciencies.

My doctor will not test for anything like this. he thinks i am nuts. he likes pill and when those don't work he leans on " having a good attitude and live with it."

What I do like about him is that when he sees that something is wrong he will do every test under the planet to find out as long as he believes something is wrong.

Can't really switch doctors because there is a huge shortage right now. (living in Canada) Most everything that i have learned has been on my own and very expensive. i may consider finding someone to do other tests with her but Doing all the testing with Enterolabs just broke the bank for me. i plan on getting her a good mutlivitamin right away.

the dehydration is a good point she usualy drinks lots of water but I will keep my eye on it. I am hoping to see some real dfferences after this diet begins.