Open the ampoule for injection, draw water for injection and slowly inject it into the "growth hormone" powder bottle, shake it to fully dissolve, and then use a syringe to extract part of the dissolved solution, and finally stick the needle diagonally into the daughter's stomach. For a whole year, Liu's mother has become quite proficient in this set of operation procedures.
This is what Ms. Liu's family experiences half an hour before going to bed every night - injecting growth hormone into children is not only Ms. Liu. Growth hormone has become more and more popular among young parents in recent years. Previously, there were media reports that a mother spent more than 400,000 yuan a year on growth hormone injections because she was worried about her child's growth retardation and short height, but her son only grew 1 cm in height.

Parents are often more anxious about height than their children are. But what are the misunderstandings about how growth hormone should be injected with growth hormone?
Parents' height anxiety
From 7:00 am to 24:00 pm, the dialog box of the "Growth Hormone Therapy Exchange Group" was constantly flashing with new information. The group's description reads: "We're all here for our kids. The purpose of this group is to connect, discuss, and learn from parents with the same illness. To help our kids grow taller and get through difficult times together."
It's a group of nearly 2,000 parents from across the country who are all here for the same reason - their kids are still young. As soon as the reporter joined the group, someone posted the hospital checklist "What should I do if my child's bone age is 2 years older?" This question caused a lot of discussion.
This is not a unique group. A search for "growth hormone" will turn up some communication groups specifically designed for children's heights. Parents always care about the height of their children. In recent years, with the development of social and economic level and the improvement of people's health awareness, parents' expectations for their children's height have become more and more sufficient. Once you ask why you can blurt out countless reasons.

"Height is a life-related issue that directly affects a child's future employment, marriage and other major issues." "I am afraid that the child's lack of self-esteem will affect the child's mental health." "Some majors have restrictions on children's height. I don't want to lose this opportunity." We don't want our kids to be too tall but we want them to be medium." "My minimum height requirement is: no less than 170cm for boys and no less than 160cm for girls..."
"Because I'm not tall, I'm very worried that my child is not tall." Speaking of her daughter's height, Ms. Liu said, "Shortness is like a dark cloud hanging over my head. I can't escape it, but now I use the power of technology. An injection can change my daughter's height and finally there is hope that it will not be too high as long as 160 cm."
But in addition to parents like Ms. Liu who want their children to grow to a "normal" height, there is another group of "chicken baby" parents. There was once such a patient that "the boy's height has grown to 175 cm, but the parents' economic situation is better and hope that the child can grow to 180 cm or even more than 180 cm with the help of growth hormone."
According to a study published earlier in the world-renowned medical journal The Lancet, the average height of 19-year-old men in China is 175.7 cm and the average height of 19-year-old women is 163.5 cm. So fearful of being left behind, parents turned their attention to a range of medical treatments in hopes of raising their children a little higher.
The parents of the growth hormone therapy exchange group assured others that height wasn't all that important. Immediately, someone retorted below: "Do you think height is not important when you play (growth hormone) every day so actively?"
"I admit it," the parent said.
Growth hormone cannot be played at will
Somatotropin is a peptide hormone secreted by the anterior pituitary gland of the human brain. It has anabolic effects and can increase muscle mass. It also promotes bone growth in childhood and adolescence, strengthens tendons and increases internal organ volume.
Recombinant human growth hormone is a growth hormone with the same structure as human growth hormone produced by DNA recombination technology. It originated in America. In 1985, the US FDA approved Genentech Biopharmaceutical Company to market recombinant human growth hormone.

FDA-approved indications for growth hormone include growth hormone deficiency in children, idiopathic growth short stature, short stature with Turner syndrome, pre-transplant chronic renal insufficiency, and HIV infection-related wasting syndrome. Growth hormone is widely known in China because it is mainly used to treat short stature and has the effect of "increasing height".
The emergence of growth hormone is a major advancement in medicine, which has benefited many people, especially those with growth hormone deficiency have the effect of "long drought and rain". But growth hormone should not expand the scope of treatment firmly opposed to abuse.
But some parents don't recognize the signs or even recognize the risks. It's seriously wrong to use it recklessly. In addition, some private clinics blindly making money need to be controlled. On the one hand, they may not be able to give the child the correct dose because of their poor technique; on the other hand, in some children the epiphyseal line (the cartilage between the epiphysis and the epiphysis) appears as a broad band of light on the child's x-ray that changes with age. short. A tight suture-epiphyseal line is formed when the epiphysis and epiphysis are completely ossified. It is extremely irresponsible to be tricked into injecting growth hormone when the bone is completely closed. Not only the parents are burdened with financial pressure, the wrong use of growth hormone will also have a negative impact on the normal growth and development of children.
A more serious situation is that when some private hospitals use growth hormone, the first consideration is economic interests, and they do not put safety first and do not rule out whether the child has potential tumor and metabolic risks. These practices are very dangerous.
The use of growth hormone should be judged by a combination of many factors.
First look at the child's current bone age growth and development; second height and the gap between peers. The third assesses the child's current developmental status and speed of development. Fourth, look at the genes of the parents. Supplementation is required for patients who are indeed deficient in growth hormone.
If you need to inject growth hormone into your child, you should do a physical examination for your child in advance. The first thing to rule out is growth disorders caused by growth hormone deficiency. Abnormal growth and development in children is not only related to growth hormone, nutrition, disease, endocrine-related parasites, but also affects the height of children. Secondly, risk factors related to growth hormone therapy should be excluded, such as assessing blood glucose metabolism in children and the presence or absence of tumors.

In addition, injection of growth hormone may also cause a series of adverse reactions such as edema, headache, blood sugar fluctuation, and thyroid dysfunction. The dosage of growth hormone should be controlled by a professional doctor. Children receiving growth hormone therapy should receive specialist outpatient follow-up every 3-6 months to monitor and evaluate its efficacy and safety.
It is undeniable that every parent wants their child to have the perfect height but this must be viewed rationally under scientific evaluation.
Some parents are too aggressive about their child's height and try various methods to grow taller, but some parents are too conservative and think that the child is just "growing late" without timely detection and intervention of the child's growth and development, delaying the critical period.
How can parents judge whether the child's height development is abnormal? A simple and effective method is to compare the height levels of people of the same sex and the same age group and observe their percentiles. The specific operation is to find the percentile of your child's height by referring to the "Percentile Curve of Height and Weight of Children and Adolescents". Any height between 3rd and 97th is considered normal. If a child's own curve parallels one of these curves, that's a sign of normal development. Parents don't need to blindly supplement in pursuit of above average. Growth retardation may occur in the 3rd and below, and over-growth may occur in the 97th or more, requiring medical intervention.
In addition, children's growth rate is lower than normal every year; parents are short in height but preschool children grow earlier than children of the same age; Breast enlargement in girls before the age of 8 boys and testicular enlargement and other sexual characteristics before the age of 10 years of age, the growth rate of height growth is significantly accelerated; the menarche in girls is earlier than 10 years old or the height of menarche is less than 145 cm; These conditions require prompt medical intervention when a boy's voice changes before the age of 12 and his height is below average.

In addition to medical intervention, daily diet, sleep, exercise, and mood also have an important impact on adolescent height. Parents should pay special attention to these aspects.