When should babies start to supplement calcium?

Many parents know that babies need calcium supplements, but they don’t know when to start supplementing calcium, how to supplement calcium, and what to pay attention to when supplementing calcium. These problems are a headache for many novice parents. So what should we pay attention to when supplementing calcium? Let the editor take you to learn.

When should babies start taking calcium supplements?

Many newborn babies need to start eating complementary foods to supplement calcium after drinking their mother's breast milk. At this time, many issues need to be paid attention to.

1. According to the baby's growth and development, the best time to supplement calcium for babies is when the baby shows early symptoms of calcium deficiency, such as night sweats, night terrors, night crying, pillow rubbing, pillow baldness, etc., or when the baby has developmental delays, such as the baby can't lift his head after 2 months, can't turn over after 4 months, can't sit steadily at half a year old, can't crawl at 7 or 8 months, can't stand or walk when he is almost one year old, etc. These symptoms indicate that the baby is calcium deficient, and this is the best time to supplement calcium.

2. According to the season, the best time for babies to supplement calcium is in summer. The temperature is high in summer, and babies can get more sun exposure outdoors. Ultraviolet rays shining on exposed skin can synthesize vitamin D in the body and promote calcium absorption. Therefore, calcium supplementation in summer will achieve twice the result with half the effort.

Principles of calcium supplementation for babies

Do not supplement if you are not deficient, supplement only if you are deficient, and supplement as much as you are deficient. The dosage of calcium supplement is generally based on the dietary calcium intake reaching the recommended amount, and the calcium supplement dosage = dietary calcium recommended amount - calcium intake.

Calcium supplement dosage for children

1. Infants: 100 mg

2. Children: 200 mg

3. Preschool children: 300 mg

4. Primary school students: 300 mg

5. Middle school students: 500 mg

What should I do if my baby becomes constipated after taking calcium supplements?

Calcium supplementation does not directly cause constipation in babies. There are many causes of constipation in babies, mainly insufficient water intake, lack of exercise and indigestion of food. If your baby is constipated, experts recommend the following attempts:

1. Drink more water

Mothers can feed their babies water while breastfeeding, or add some fruit juice. If the baby is fed with formula milk, the baby can be supplemented with warm water with the same amount of milk between meals to help the baby digest. Do not let the baby eat too much high-protein, high-fat food.

2. Massage more to help your baby's gastrointestinal motility

Technique: Put the mother's middle finger and index finger together, use the baby massage skin care oil, and gently make clockwise circles on the baby's belly 50 times, but avoid the belly button.

3. Do more fitness exercises for your baby

Insufficient exercise can sometimes lead to constipation. Therefore, for babies who cannot walk or crawl independently, parents should hold them more and do simple aerobics to help them stretch their muscles and prevent constipation.

When supplementing calcium for babies, we should pay attention to the right amount and supplement vitamin D for babies to promote calcium absorption to prevent excess calcium precipitation from causing constipation in babies.

How to choose calcium supplement products

1. Product safety

In addition to reliable quality assurance, another key factor in choosing calcium supplement products is the safety of the calcium source. Currently, most domestic calcium on the market is taken from animal bones and marine organisms. Although these raw materials are known as "pure natural", due to the increasingly serious environmental pollution problem, animals and organisms may accumulate heavy metals such as lead and mercury in their bodies due to pollution, causing excessive heavy metal content. Calcium supplements extracted from these organisms may be contaminated. Calcium supplements with excessive heavy metal content are not conducive to the development of babies. They not only inhibit the synthesis of multiple enzyme systems, but also inhibit bone growth and development and bone beam formation, inhibit the hydroxylation of vitamin D, and inhibit the absorption of calcium and iron. Therefore, parents should look carefully at the calcium source when choosing and should not be misled by advertisements.

2. The product has no additives

In order to make calcium supplements taste better and make babies love them more, many food additives are added, such as compressible sugar, orange flavor, sweet powder, mannitol, silicon dioxide, etc. my country stipulates that food additives are legal, but the country has clear standards for the use of food additives. If some calcium supplements have too many types of additives or the additive ingredients are not marked on the label, parents need to be careful. The mixed use of multiple food additives can still have a great impact on the baby. Therefore, it is best to choose calcium supplements without additives.

3. High solubility of the product

Various calcium preparations have certain target groups. Infants and young children have less gastric acid secretion and poor gastrointestinal digestion and absorption function, so calcium preparations with higher solubility and less gastric irritation must be selected. Calcium carbonate is often used as a calcium supplement in clinical practice because of its high calcium content, few side effects, low price, and absorption equivalent to that of milk. In recent years, calcium carbonate has been widely used as a calcium supplement in the United States. If you want to supplement calcium for infants and young children, you must choose a suitable calcium carbonate dosage form, preferably one that can dissolve on its own and can be well absorbed without consuming gastric acid.