Primordial dwarfism is a form of dwarfism that results in a smaller body size in all stages of life beginning from before birth. More specifically, primordial dwarfism is a diagnostic category including specific types of profoundly proportionate dwarfism, in which individuals are extremely small for their age, even as a fetus. Most individuals with primordial dwarfism are not diagnosed until they are about 3 years of age.
Medical professionals typically diagnose the fetus as being small for the gestational age, or as having intrauterine growth disability when an ultrasound is conducted. Typically, people with primoridal dwarfism are born with very low birth weights. After birth, growth continues at a stunted rate, leaving individuals with primordial dwarfism perpetually years behind their peers in stature and in weight.
Most cases of short stature are caused by skeletal or endocrine disorders. The five subtypes of primordial dwarfism are among the most severe forms of the 200 types of dwarfism, and it is estimated that there are only 100 individuals in the world with the disorder. Other sources list the number of persons currently afflicted as high as 100 in North America.
It is rare for individuals affected by primordial dwarfism to live past the age of 30. In the case of microcephalic osteodysplastic primordial dwarfism (MOPD) type II there can be increased risk of vascular problems, which may cause premature death.
Read more about Primordial Dwarfism: Diagnosis, Types of Primordial Dwarfism, Causes and Treatment, Notable People Believed To Have Primordial Dwarfism, See Also
Famous quotes containing the word primordial:
“The image cannot be dispossessed of a primordial freshness, which idea can never claim. An idea is derivative and tamed. The image is in the natural or wild state, and it has to be discovered there, not put there, obeying its own law and none of ours. We think we can lay hold of image and take it captive, but the docile captive is not the real image but only the idea, which is the image with its character beaten out of it.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)