Relationships between height growth in adolescence and dermatoglyphic radioulnar ridge count contrasts in the children and their mothers

The prenatal setting/programming of human postnatal growth is an under-researched area even though the effects of prenatal programming on the human body and its functions are considerable. The aim of this association study was to determine whether there is a link between postnatal growth in adolescence and dermatoglyphics as putative markers of prenatal sex differentiation. The sample is represented by data acquired in three subsequent years of a semi-longitudinal study; the total sample included 166 participants. 83 participants were children aged 0-18 years (43 boys). The adults were represented by their mothers. A recently developed method based on Functional Principal Component Analysis was used for prediction of individual adolescent growth milestones, including age at peak velocity, which were correlated with dermatoglyphic between-finger ridge count contrasts of the studied children and their mothers. We found that children's own dermatoglyphic traits correlated more with growth milestones in boys than in girls, while mothers' dermatoglyphic traits correlated more with girls' growth milestones. The strongest correlations were often provided by contrasts calculated from the ridge count of the 2nd or 4th finger, which appear to be most closely related to prenatal sex determination. Despite the limitations of this pilot study, it is the first study of the association between dermatoglyphics and postnatal growth in adolescence. When considered in a biological context, the results provide a promising basis for searching for prenatal origins of variation in some aspects (timing, velocity) of postnatal growth that can be further tested and elaborated in future independent studies.