His wife, Amy, also 4 feet 2, is a more common achondroplastic dwarf and has minimal physical problems.

An achondroplastic dwarf can be born of normal parents, but the dwarf's children have a 50 percent chance of being dwarfs.

"and "Maximum standing height permitted is 125cm, which is the mean standing height for female achondroplastic dwarves (12).

Created by spontaneous mutation, an achondroplastic dwarf lives in pain; his knees ache, his elbows ache - not to mention that they won't extend.

It explains that Jaime is an achondroplastic dwarf, "the most common variety," and that her condition, "caused by a genetic abnormality," does not affect her intellectually.

This arm length is proportionate for a male of standing height 130cm (5) and approximately 2 standard deviations above the mean arm length for a male achondroplastic dwarf of 130cm.

Its narrator, Benedict Lambert, is an achondroplastic dwarf and a brilliant genetic scientist whose professional vocation and private obsessions dovetail so neatly that the most casual encounter inspires a scientific assay, often complete with footnotes.

In the case of a spontaneous mutation, unaffected parents of dwarf childen have essentially no further risk of producing another dwarf child; the unaffected brothers and sisters of an achondroplastic dwarf are similarly not at risk - they won't necessarily produce dwarfs, either.