Bone Age

We went to the endocrinologist yesterday for Hannah and we learned a lot of interesting things about the human body. A couple of months ago we took Hannah into the hospital to get a bone age scan. I was expecting a large x-ray of the entire body, but that isn't what they did. They took her right hand, layed it down on the table, and took an x-ray. I was puzzled, how can they determine the age of one's bones by an x-ray of their hand? Well, I found out how today. Back in the 1930s they followed a several people from their infant stage on through their adulthood and every year they would take an x-ray of their hand. The results were compiled and they were able to determine that the average age of the bones by which bones started to develop in the hand.

2 months ago Hannah had a bone age scan which showed her bones to be that of a nine month old when she was 18 months. She is short in stature so this is could be a good thing. It will allow her body to grow over a longer period of time.