For our bodies to be strong, we all need iron! Hemoglobin, the component of red blood cells that transports oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body, needs iron to function properly. Since iron is necessary for energy, muscle function, and brain development, a child who does not get enough of it can have learning or behavioral problems.
What is Iron deficiency anemia?
Red blood cell counts that are lower than normal for a certain age are referred to as anemia.
The body cannot produce hemoglobin when iron levels are too low. Because there are fewer red blood cells when hemoglobin levels are low, less oxygen reaches the cells and tissues that make up our bodies.
Which children are at risk for anemia?
- Premature or underweight birth
- Living in poverty or immigrating from developing country
- Too much cow’s milk because cow milk protein prevents iron absorption
- iron- or vitamin- or mineral-deficient diet
- surgery or an incident involving bleeding
- Chronic conditions such infections or renal or liver dysfunction
- A history of hereditary anemias like sickle cell anemia in the family
Preventing Iron deficiency anemia in children?
The following steps can help prevent children from developing iron deficiency anemia, which is the world’s most significant nutrition issue.
- Don’t overdo milk: Don’t give cow’s milk to babies under 1 year old. And limit cow’s milk in kids over 1 year old
- Serve iron-rich foods once starts with solid food, provide foods with added iron, such as iron-fortified baby cereal, vegetable purees, chicken soup etc.
- Enhance iron absorption: Vitamin C helps promote the absorption of dietary iron. Offer foods rich in vitamin C such as citrus fruits, strawberries, tomatoes, and dark green vegetables.
- Endris BS, Dinant GJ, Gebreyesus SH, Spigt M. Risk factors of anemia among preschool children in Ethiopia: a Bayesian geo-statistical model. BMC Nutr. 2022;8(1):2. This is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The article has been taken from the (BMC Nutrition), and the content has been modified for its use on the pleatform. This is attributed to Bilal Shikur Endris, Geert-Jan Dinant, Seifu H. Gebreyesus & Mark Spigt, and the original version can be found in the link below https://bmcnutr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40795-021-00495-3 , Risk factors of anemia among preschool children in Ethiopia: a Bayesian geo-statistical model. BMC Nutr. 2022;8(1):2.
- Khandelwal S, et al. Infant Young Child Feeding Practices in an Indian Maternal-Childbirth Cohort in Belagavi, Karnataka. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022;19(9):5088. This is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The article has been taken from the (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health), and the content has been modified for its use on the platform. This is attributed to Khandelwal S, Kondal D, Chakravarti AR, Dutta S, Banerjee B, Chaudhry M, Patil K, Swamy MK, Ramakrishnan U, Prabhakaran D, Tandon N, Stein AD, and the original version can be found in the link below https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/9/5088/htm , Infant Young Child Feeding Practices in an Indian Maternal-Child Birth Cohort in Belagavi, Karnataka. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022;19(9):5088.
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