How tall can a girl grow after her menarche? What leading experts say

When a girl starts menstruating, she is already in puberty, which is the stage of physical growth. Women will continue to grow taller after menstruation, but it is difficult to say how tall they will grow. After all, everyone's physical fitness is different, so it is very complicated.

1. Normal situation: The maximum length is 5-7 cm, and the smallest length may be only 2-3 cm.

Before puberty, our growth and development are mainly regulated by growth hormone. After entering puberty, the gonads develop, sex hormones begin to be secreted, and we enter a period of accelerated growth. This is the result of the combined effects of growth hormone and sex hormone. In addition to promoting growth, sex hormones also promote sexual maturity and closure of the epiphyses (growth areas of bones), eventually leading to a cessation of height growth.

Therefore, the sudden and rapid growth in height, while secondary sexual characteristics are developing (breast development in girls, beard growth in boys, etc.), is an important feature of puberty.

The process of sudden growth in height usually occurs six months to one year after breast development in girls, and around the time of voice change in boys. This process takes about a year. Girls' height increases by an average of 8 to 9 cm per year, while boys' height increases by 1 to 2 cm more than girls.

After this period, growth slows down, returning to the pre-pubertal pace of about 4 to 5 centimeters per year. The deceleration time is around the time of menarche for girls and after voice change for boys.

After another year, the growth rate drops sharply to only 1 to 2 cm per year until the epiphysis completely closes and stops growing, reaching adult height.

Therefore, girls can generally grow another 5-7 cm after their menarche, but there is basically no possibility of further growth after more than 2 years of their menarche.

2. Menstruation before the age of 10: It depends on bone age

If a child starts menstruating before the age of 11, it is very likely to be precocious puberty. Girls develop breasts before the age of 8 and have their first menstruation before the age of 10; boys develop secondary sexual characteristics before the age of 9, accompanied by rapid physical development, which is called precocious puberty. The main consequence of precocious puberty is short stature as an adult.

So will children with precocious puberty stop growing taller after their period starts? It depends on the child's bone age.

Bone age is an important indicator for judging the developmental maturity of the human body. For a normally growing child, the bone age is basically the same as his or her life age.

Adult height can be estimated by calculating the height and bone age (determined by X-rays) measured at the same time, but this method is unreliable for younger children because there are many influencing factors. It is more reliable for adolescent children.

Therefore, if you ask how much you can grow after menstruation, it depends on your bone age at that time. For example, two girls who came to see the doctor recently, one was 9 months after her menarche and her bone age was close to 14 years old; the other was 21 months after her menarche but her bone age was just over 13 years old. Obviously, the latter has much more room for growth than the former.

In addition, we can also use the parents' height to calculate the child's genetic height, and then combine it with bone age judgment to comprehensively estimate the child's growth potential.

3. If you see a doctor at this time, the disease will basically stop growing.

The impact of precocious puberty on height at different stages is different. If you seek medical treatment in time, some of the height loss can be recovered.

As mentioned before, normal children usually have their first menstruation more than 2 years later, and it will be difficult for them to grow taller. The same is true for children with precocious puberty. In general, the later the diagnosis of precocious puberty is, the greater the loss of height will be. Therefore, once parents discover that their child has breast development before the age of 8, it is best to seek medical attention as soon as possible, the sooner the better!