What are the symptoms of anemia in children? What are the dangers of anemia in children?

Children not eating well must be a problem that worries countless mothers. When eating, their attention is always distracted by other things, or they stop eating after two bites, which can easily lead to anemia.

1. Mild paleness of the skin and mucous membranes, most notably the lighter pink color of the lips, conjunctiva, and nail beds.

2. Children with anemia may also be very irritable, mildly weak, or easily fatigued.

3. Patients with severe anemia may have symptoms such as shortness of breath, rapid heart rate, and edema of hands and feet.

4. If anemia persists, it may affect the child’s normal growth and development.

1. Impact on immunity: Most cases of anemia in children are iron deficiency anemia, which can lead to defects in cellular immune function, making the child's resistance poor and susceptible to disease. It can also lead to reduced gastric acid secretion and poor fat absorption, thus affecting the child's digestive function.

2. Impact on children's growth and development: Anemia will cause the child's body to be in a state of hypoxia, which will affect development and cause muscle weakness. In addition, anemia will reduce the blood's oxygen absorption capacity, causing the body's organs and tissues to become hypoxic, causing the child to experience shortness of breath, accelerated heartbeat and other discomforts when exercising a little.

3. Impact on intelligence. When a child's anemia causes a decrease in oxygen uptake, it will lead to brain tissue hypoxia, which will affect the child's memory and attention, which is not good for intellectual development. It will also harm the child's auditory conduction pathway, reduce the child's endurance, and weaken the response to stimuli.

4. Affect children's mood. When anemia causes hypoxia, it will lead to abnormal brain cell metabolism, which will make children lose their temper, cry and get irritable. In addition, anemia will make children weak, often sick, and have less contact with others. This will also affect children's social adaptability, make children's personality become withdrawn and inferior, which is not good for their mental health.

Anemia in children is not only affected by genetic factors, but also closely related to congenital diseases, malnutrition, lack of exercise, living habits and eating habits. In early childhood, not paying attention to diet, being picky and partial to certain foods will affect the absorption of nutrients, causing malnutrition, weight loss and a series of other phenomena, which will cause secondary iron deficiency anemia symptoms, which need to be improved by taking blood-enriching drugs or diet methods. In daily life, children should be trained to have good eating habits and achieve balanced nutrition.

1. Supplement iron

Supplement iron-containing foods, such as iron-fortified infant formula milk powder, iron-containing rice flakes or iron-containing vitamin drops. At the same time, you should also supplement foods rich in vitamin C, such as tomato juice, vegetable puree, etc., to promote iron absorption. In addition, when the baby starts to eat solid food, you should also feed more foods containing a lot of iron, such as egg yolks, rice porridge, vegetable porridge, etc., but avoid feeding sugar, because sugar will hinder the absorption of iron.

2. Pay attention to your baby's physical condition at any time and check in time

Always pay attention to the baby's physical condition, and if necessary, do a hemoglobin test for the baby, because babies with mild anemia cannot be seen from the outside. If the baby's hemoglobin is too low, it means that the baby has anemia, and iron should be supplemented in time, and foods high in iron should be eaten.

3. Add iron-fortified diet

Regarding the addition of iron-fortified diet, full-term infants start from 4-6 months (no later than 6 months), and premature infants and low-weight infants start from 3 months. The simplest method is to add ferrous sulfate to milk formula or complementary food. For breast-fed infants, add iron-containing cereals 1-2 times a day. Ferrous sulfate drops can also be used alternately. The amount of pure iron for full-term infants should not exceed 1mg/kg/day (2.5% FeSO4 0.2ml/kg/day), and for premature infants, it should not exceed 2mg/kg·d. The maximum total daily dose is 15mg, and it should not be used at home for up to 1 month to avoid iron poisoning.

4. The content of milk without iron in artificial feeding

If the baby is bottle-fed for more than 6 months and is fed milk without iron, the total amount should not exceed 750 ml, otherwise the intake of iron-containing diet will be squeezed out.

5. Eat iron-fortified flour

For children and adults, it is best to add 13-16 mg of iron per pound of flour. In rural my country, cereals and starches are the main food. Hookworm disease is prevalent in some places and must be taken seriously. At the same time, attention should be paid to increasing the meat diet as much as possible, because even if iron is added to cereals, its absorption is not as good as that of meat products.