Leg pain a legitimate gripe for young kids

Growing pains -- recurring leg aches with no discernible cause -- are surprisingly common in young children, affecting one in three 4- to 6-year-olds.

“It’s been reported for years that growing pains typically affect young children the most, but they’ve typically been studied the least,” said Angela Evans, a post-doctoral student at the School of Health Science at the University of South Australia and lead author of a new study on growing pains.

Although the research confirms the complaints of those children whose pains might often be dismissed, there’s no single test to diagnose growing pains. Usually, a doctor determines a child has growing pains only by eliminating other conditions.

Three explanations have been proposed for the muscle aches, which typically occur in the late afternoon and evening: fatigue of the leg muscles in active children; anatomical differences, such as flat feet or knock knees; and emotional or psychological problems.

“They’re all theories,” Evans said. “We have no hard proof of any of them.”

To alleviate growing pains, parents often give their children pain-relievers, massage their legs or apply heat. Evans suggested that children stretch their calves, hamstrings and quadriceps muscles before bedtime because a small Canadian study found this to be effective.

Evans and her colleagues surveyed the parents of 1,445 children ages 4 to 6 in Australia’s Adelaide area in 2002. An estimated 36.9% of the children experienced growing pains.

The study appeared in the August issue of the Journal of Pediatrics.