Blind iron supplements hinder children's growth

The children in the city are generally intensively bred. Although there is no shortage of food and clothing, parents still worry that their children are not healthy enough and they are very enthusiastic about various nutraceuticals. There are always some parents who “diagnose” their baby for iron deficiency anemia and go to the hospital asking for trace elements or iron supplements.

Dr. Ke Haijing, deputy chief physician of Guangdong Provincial Maternal and Child Health Hospital, pointed out that in fact, if you suspect that your baby is suffering from iron deficiency, you need to combine the developmental and nutritional status of the past and use the necessary auxiliary examination to diagnose whether there is a problem of iron deficiency. And anemia is not necessarily iron deficiency, iron deficiency is not necessarily anemia. Blind iron supplementation and iron deficiency hinder children's growth and development.

Iron deficiency without anemia is more common

Ke Haijin introduced that iron is an essential element of the human body. For children whose growth and development are in a rapid phase, their demand for iron will also increase. If iron is lacking, iron deficiency anemia can easily be caused. Iron-deficiency anemia rarely causes children's death, but it will affect the child's physical development and immunity to a certain extent. Severe iron-deficiency anaemia may interfere with the development of the central nervous system. Cause children's behavior abnormalities, decreased ability to respond to the surrounding environment, affect children's intellectual development, and even more serious and even develop anemia or heart failure, etc., is a common nutritional deficiency in children. Therefore, children with iron deficiency anaemia often cause parents to pay attention.

In 2001, the “Study on the epidemiology of iron deficiency in children in China” found that the total prevalence of iron deficiency (ID) in children aged 7 to 7 years in China was 40.3%, and the prevalence of IDA was 7.8%. Although the prevalence of iron deficiency anemia (IDA) has been significantly reduced, iron deficiency (ID without anemia) is still very serious. The prevalence of iron deficiency and IDA in infants is 44.7% and 20.5%, respectively, which is significantly higher than that of young children. With preschool children, the overall prevalence of IDA in rural children was 12.3%, which was significantly higher than that in urban children (5.6%).

In the face of the more common iron deficiency problem, many parents are prone to overdoing them and fearing that their children are short of iron. Many parents even hold a "better and better preparedness" mentality for "supplementing iron," and thus iron their children through various channels. Blood supplements are also dietary supplements and they are all kinds of iron supplements. Ke Haijin said that, as everyone knows, blindly supplementing iron and blood is not only a waste of money, but it may also lead to excessive iron load in the child's body, which in turn triggers a series of problems.

When iron overload occurs in the human body, first, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, constipation, and other symptoms of discomfort may occur. Then, dizziness, headache, and palpitation may occur, and even more serious may cause liver and kidney function damage. Therefore, Ke Haijing reminded parents that it is best not to purchase various iron preparations for children without the guidance of a professional doctor. In particular, it is not possible to consume two or more different iron fortifiers at the same time to avoid causing iron intake. Into excess.

Artificial feeding is more susceptible to iron deficiency than breastfeeding before half-year-old

In general, iron deficiency in children is due to the fact that parents did not give him supplement food containing iron in a timely manner after 6 months. For children up to 6 months old, if breastfeeding, the nutrients in breast milk can basically meet the child's growth needs, and the absorption rate of iron in breast milk can reach 50%, which is higher than the absorption rate of milk in milk such as milk. Much higher, so breast-feeding children rarely suffer from iron deficiency anemia.

Some children develop mild anemia between 1 week and two or three months after birth. This may be due to a temporary physiological anemia that occurs when the baby's hemoglobin is temporarily lower than normal during growth and development. This kind of situation can usually not make special iron treatment.

After half a year, the food supplement is easy to iron deficiency

6 months later, the child began to add supplementary food, but some parents are relatively single in the supplementary food for the child. When the child grows up again, due to the unreasonable nutrition structure of some children's partial eclipse picky eaters, or Because children suffer from diseases such as intestinal parasites, chronic diarrhea, or indigestion, affecting the absorption and utilization of iron, the iron intake cannot meet the needs of the body and iron deficiency appears slowly. When a child has iron deficiency anaemia, she will send some signals on the body: such as pale complexion, dry skin, reddish or blemish on the conjunctiva and lips of the eye, and children with iron deficiency anemia often have poor appetite. The listlessness, hemoglobin content, and red blood cell counts are the reliable basis for the diagnosis of anemia.

When the diagnosis is iron-deficiency anemia, if the degree is mild, it is generally recommended that the condition of anemia be improved by a reasonable dietary adjustment. Six-month-old children add iron-fortified rice noodles. Big children like meat, egg yolk, animal liver, animal blood, etc. are iron-rich foods that can be eaten more, and at the same time, in order to promote iron absorption, When giving children these iron-rich foods, they must also add foods rich in protein, lactose, and vitamins. For foods that contain phytic acid, oxalic acid, etc. that can affect iron absorption, they should be eaten as little as possible or eaten separately.

It is not enough to rely on diet regulation

When the degree of anemia is severe and dietary adjustment alone is not enough, professional doctors should also be asked to diagnose if iron supplementation is needed. This is because the causes of anemia are many.

Ke Haijin reminded that if you can't deal with the cause, you can eat more iron and sometimes it may even worsen your condition. For example, for children with thalami panic disorder, the cause of their anemia is due to excessive destruction of red blood cells. At this time, the release of iron from red blood cells increases. Therefore, it is not only free of iron deficiency. On the contrary, it affects some severely affected people. In terms of children, they can develop iron pigmentation due to excessive iron overload. In this case, they cannot only supplement iron to these anemic children, but instead require iron. Otherwise, excessive iron deposition may occur. And it affects the secretion of growth hormone.

Therefore, when it is determined that iron deficiency anemia, and due to the degree of anemia, need to supplement iron, he must also strictly follow the doctor's advice and reasonable use of drugs, regular review of hemoglobin and related indicators, so as not to cause excessive iron.