Growth Hormone

[Love_fitness]

My grand-daughter was born at 27 weeks.  She was 1 pound 4 ounces, she had many problems such as the need of 100% oxygen, jaundice, acid reflux, hernia surgery, sleepapnea, 2 blodd transfusions, anemia, and finally brain bleed, it was categorized as a 3.
She was in NICU for almost 4 months.
She is 6 months old and yesterday the doctors told my daughter that she is at 1/3 % of her height and weight.
She has not gained weight or grown in almost three weeks.
Could all her birth problems or the brain bleed had cause her to have a growth hormone problem.
In short could she have dwarfism?

[Yao Sun, MD, PhD]

"Dwarfism" generally describes a group of skeletal growth problems (skeletal dysplasia) that usually result in abnormal length/growth of the bones, and is particularly noticeable in the long bones.  These are genetic syndromes and are not acquired.  In the vast majority of skeletal dysplasias, the disorder is apparent at the time of birth due to abnormal measurement ratios of the bones.

In terms of growth hormone, prematurity and intraventricular hemorrhage are not generally associated with growth hormone deficiency unless there are problems with other hormones also.  It is most likely that your granddaughter's small size is due to her former general illness and prematurity.  Babies like her need a tremendous amount of nutrition to achieve "catch up" growth, which can sometimes be hard to obtain if she doesn't eat extremely well.

[Love_fitness]

Thank you so much for your answer. This little girl has all of us nervous.