When we are and moms, it is normal that we are curious to know what our little one will be like in the future. Many parents wonder how do i know how tall my baby will be. Will it resemble the father or the mother? If you also have these concerns, in this article we will tell you how genes affect the height of the baby and what other factors influence its growth.
How do I know how tall my baby will be?
To find out how tall a baby will be, we can find a wide variety of calculators on the Internet. These tools are based on statistical data and allow us to estimate how tall our baby will be as an adult. However, they often only take into account the sex of the baby and the height of the parents.
As a general rule, it is true that gender and genetics have a significant influence on height, so these calculators can approximate the future height of the child. Despite this, we know that two brothers of the same sex do not usually measure the same. Therefore, there must be other factors involved in the growth of children.
Today we know that the height a child will have is determined by numerous factors, among which are:
- Genetics.
- Sex
- Feeding.
- Health condition.
- Nutrition and health of the mother during pregnancy.
- Age at which sexual maturity is reached.
- Socioeconomic factors.
The size of the baby at birth and his future height
Some calculators on the Internet promise to give us the future height of our son / daughter from his current height. However, the size of the baby at birth and his future height are not necessarily related.
Some children grow a lot during their infancy, while others get a stretch during puberty. In addition, there are times when growth accelerates and others when it slows down. Because of this, the height at a certain point in childhood does not determine the height of the adult.
Therefore, just because our son / daughter is small does not mean that he / she will be short when he / she becomes an adult.
How Genes Affect Baby Height?
Genetics have a great influence on the height of humans. Its heritability is estimated at 60-70%. However, it is a very complex trait that depends on the influence of numerous genes. Some of them and their function are not yet well known. In addition, they are related to other genes and traits whose expression depends on the environment in which the baby develops.
If the parents are tall, will a tall child come out?
So if we are tall, will our children be tall? Normally, children have a height similar to that of their parents, since genetics greatly influences this trait. However, height depends on many other factors, such as nutrition, and environmental, socioeconomic and domestic factors. This means, for example, that poverty can cause people to be shorter than they should be based on their genetics.
In addition, a very curious statistical phenomenon known as “regression to the mean” occurs. The children of fathers and mothers with extreme heights, whether they are very tall or very short, tend to return to the average height of humans. This means that the children of very tall parents tend to be shorter than these, while the children of very short parents tend to be taller.
How tall the baby will be when he grows up?
As we have already indicated, knowing how tall a baby will be is very difficult, since it depends on many circumstances. Thus, if we want our baby to develop large and strong, we must take into account factors such as health, sports activity, socioeconomic environment, age at which it develops sexually and diet itself. The height of a person depends, to a large extent, on their diet during development, both in the baby stage and in childhood and adolescence.
The influence of diet on its growth
Food influences the development and growth of the baby since the mother is pregnant. A balanced diet in pregnant women is essential for the baby to develop in the most appropriate way. In addition, it is very important to give the baby the best possible nutrition from the moment it is born.
Children suffering from nutritional deficiencies may experience developmental deficiencies and growth retardation, something that can significantly influence their adult height. For this reason, we must give our sons and daughters a balanced and age-appropriate diet, educating them from a young age to take care of their health and their diet for the rest of their lives.
