What causes girls to stop growing?

Growth plates (epiphyseal plates) at the ends of long bones fuse and stop lengthening. In females, complete fusion can begin as early as age 12 in some bones, and virtually all females have fused growth plates by 18.

Does CDC height data show girls' growth plateauing?

Yes. This site's CDC/NHANES reference shows median female height barely changing from age 14 onward — 161.1cm at 14, 161.7cm at both 15 and 16, and 161.9cm for the adult (20+) aggregate.

Can a girl still grow after 18?

It's uncommon but not impossible for a small amount of growth to continue slightly past 18, since growth-plate fusion timing varies between individuals. By 18, virtually all females have fused growth plates, so any further change is typically minimal.

Should I worry if my daughter's growth seems unusual?

This article describes a general population pattern, not medical advice. If you have a specific concern about a child's growth, a GP or paediatrician can assess it properly, including checking growth-plate status if needed.

When do girls stop growing?

Q: At what age do girls stop growing?

There's no single universal age. Most girls' height growth slows sharply after puberty and has largely plateaued somewhere between about 14 and 18, with individual variation being entirely normal.

Q: Does height stop right after a girl's first period?

Not instantly, but growth generally slows sharply after menarche, which occurs on average around age 12-13 in many populations. Most girls gain only a few more centimetres after that point.

Most girls’ height growth slows sharply after puberty and has largely plateaued somewhere between about 14 and 18. CDC data shows median female height barely moving from age 14 onward. The underlying cause is that growth plates in the bones fuse, and this is a general pattern, not medical advice for a specific child.

CDC female height by age: the plateau, in the data

Age	Median height (CDC/NHANES)
13	158.5cm
14	161.1cm
15	161.7cm
16	161.7cm
17	162.9cm
18	162.4cm
19	163.5cm
20 (adult aggregate)	161.9cm

The jump from 13 to 14 (about 2.6cm) is still real growth. From 14 to 15 it slows to about 0.6cm, and from 15 to 16 the median doesn’t move at all. The single-year figures for 17-19 wobble up and down a little, which reflects normal sampling noise in a relatively small per-age NHANES sample, not girls genuinely growing and shrinking year to year. The broader trend is unambiguous: median height is essentially flat from 14 through the 20+ adult aggregate.

See where 161.7cm at age 16 — this table’s own age-15/16 median — lands on the wider CDC reference curve.

Percentile

50th

At 161.7 cm and age 16, you are taller than approximately 50% of the CDC reference population for your sex.

z-score 0.00

See this height on the comparison board

Why growth stops: growth plates fusing

The biological cause is growth-plate fusion. Long bones — the ones in the legs and arms that drive height — lengthen from growth plates (epiphyseal plates) near each end. While these plates are open, bone can keep lengthening; once they fuse into solid bone, that particular bone stops growing longer for good.

Fusion doesn’t happen all at once across the whole skeleton. In females, complete fusion can begin as early as age 12 in some bones, such as the distal tibia and fibula in the lower leg. By age 18, virtually all females have fused growth plates across the skeleton, which is why height growth has effectively finished by then for almost everyone.

Puberty is the trigger behind this timing. Growth generally slows sharply after menarche — the start of periods — which occurs on average around age 12-13 in many populations. Most girls gain only a few more centimetres of height after that point, as the hormonal changes of puberty that drive the pubertal growth spurt also set growth-plate fusion in motion.

Height isn’t the only thing that changes around this time, either. Puberty brings a cluster of other physical changes alongside the growth spurt, and growth-plate fusion is simply the skeletal event that eventually brings height growth specifically to a close, distinct from those other changes.

Why there’s a range, not one exact age

Individual variation is normal and expected. Two girls can enter puberty at noticeably different ages, and growth-plate fusion timing tracks puberty rather than a fixed calendar age. That’s why “when do girls stop growing” doesn’t have one universal answer.

The honest answer is a range: most girls’ height has plateaued somewhere between about 14 and 18, with earlier puberty generally meaning an earlier plateau, and later puberty meaning growth continues a little further into the teenage years. Neither pattern is a problem on its own; it’s simply how variation in pubertal timing plays out in final height.

Genetics, nutrition and general health during childhood all influence the timing and extent of the pubertal growth spurt too, which is part of why no single age applies to everyone equally.

Calendar age versus bone age

Growth-plate fusion tracks a body’s biological development, sometimes called bone age, rather than calendar age alone. Two girls born on the same day can have growth plates at different stages of fusion, because puberty and skeletal maturity don’t run on a fixed calendar.

This is why a clinician assessing a specific child’s growth would typically look at more than just age in years. Bone age can be read from an X-ray by a specialist, which is a clinical assessment this article can’t replace, only describe in general terms.

It’s also why population data like the CDC table above, which is organised by calendar age, still shows some spread and noise around the general plateau. Real biological variation between individuals, not measurement error, explains most of that spread.

How this compares to boys

Growth-plate fusion follows the same basic biology in boys, but on a later timeline, because boys typically enter puberty around two years behind girls on average. The result is a growth curve that tapers off more gradually and finishes later, rather than the sharper plateau visible in the female data above.

See the companion article on when boys stop growing for the equivalent CDC data and age range.

What the CDC data does and doesn’t show

The table above uses this site’s CDC/NHANES reference table, the same data behind the percentile calculator. It reports median height at each single year of age from the underlying NHANES sample, plus one aggregate figure for all adults 20 and over.

It’s a snapshot of a US population sample, not a growth curve tracking the same individuals over time. It’s also worth noting that the CDC/NHANES adult figures used across this site are approximated from published percentile columns rather than the original LMS growth-chart constants — a documented approximation, not an exact clinical growth chart. Even with that caveat, the plateau from age 14 onward is a clear and consistent pattern in the data.

A general pattern, not medical advice

Everything on this page describes population-level patterns, not a diagnosis or a guarantee for any individual child. Growth-plate fusion timing genuinely varies between individuals, and a small number of girls will continue growing slightly later than 18, or plateau somewhat earlier than 14.

If you have a specific concern about a child’s growth — whether it seems too fast, too slow, or has stopped unusually early — a GP or paediatrician is the right person to assess it. They can examine growth history properly and, where appropriate, check growth-plate status directly, which no online table or calculator can do.

Method and sources

The age-by-age median heights in the table come directly from this site’s CDC/NHANES stature-for-age reference (Fryar et al., 2016), the same table used by the percentile calculator above. The growth-plate fusion timing and menarche-linked growth-slowdown description are drawn from Wikipedia’s “Epiphyseal plate” article and the PMC review “Pubertal growth and epiphyseal fusion,” both cited below, which themselves draw on peer-reviewed fusion-timing research.

Try the percentile calculator to check a specific age and height against the CDC reference, see also when do boys stop growing for the equivalent pattern in males, or open the comparison board to see any two heights side by side.