The harm of baby iron deficiency anemia How to do the right diet to improve anemia
Iron deficiency anemia in children is the most common anemia in infants and young children. The underlying cause of its occurrence is a small cell hypochromic anemia caused by iron deficiency in the body, resulting in reduced hemoglobin synthesis. So what harm can baby iron deficiency anemia have?
A large number of studies have proved that iron deficiency can affect various functions such as infant growth and development, movement and immunity. Iron deficiency can lead to decreased appetite in babies, and a few babies can appear pica; Some have stomatitis, glossitis, severe cases can occur atrophic gastritis or malabsorption syndrome.
Severe iron deficiency will damage the nervous system, affect infant cognition, learning ability and behavioral development, sustainable to childhood, and is irreversible damage, iron treatment can not completely restore the damaged cognitive behavior. According to the report of the United Nations Children's Fund, the IQ of children with iron deficiency anemia is 9 percentage points lower than that of normal children on average, and China has found that the movement and intelligent development index of children with anemia is much lower than that of normal children, so it has a significant and far-reaching impact on learning and adult employment.
Iron deficiency anemia can reduce the immune function of the body and increase the chance of infection in children. At the same time, iron deficiency increases intestinal absorption of toxic heavy metals, such as lead and cadmium, further causing harm.
In order to correct iron deficiency anemia in children, we should master the five dietary principles and timely supplement the daily need for iron:
One of the dietary principles: Add foods high in iron
Babies more than 6 months old have begun to add complementary foods, eat breast milk or milk every day, but also add eggs, vegetable puree, meat and other complementary foods. The liver and blood iron content of these complementary foods is the highest, 10 to 25 mg /100 g, about 10 times that of poultry and fish (1 to 3 mg /100 g); The iron in eggs is mainly concentrated in the yolk, and the content is similar to that of livestock and poultry meat. Followed by green leafy vegetables, among which the highest is rape, reached 5.9 mg /100 g; Shepherd's purse and amaranth followed; It is widely believed that the iron content of spinach is only 2.9 mg /100 grams, which is less than half of rape. Baby to eat milk every day, the iron content is relatively low, only about 1/10 of livestock and poultry meat. It can be seen that in the baby's complementary food, whether it is plant food or animal food, there is a higher iron.
Dietary principle two: Choose well-absorbed iron supplements
In addition to paying attention to the high iron content of the baby diet, we should also pay attention to the absorption effect of iron. There are two forms of iron in food: one is easily absorbed heme iron (also called porphyrin iron); One is inorganic iron, which is not well absorbed. The above mentioned animal liver, blood, poultry meat, fish and egg yolk in the iron is heme iron, baby eat it is easy to absorb, iron supplementation effect is very good. The iron in vegetables and the iron in milk belong to inorganic iron, although the iron content of vegetables is not low, but the baby can absorb less when eating, and the iron supplementation effect is not good.
Dietary principle three: Add complementary foods in a timely and reasonable manner
Baby from 6 months of age, simply using breast milk and milk feeding can not fully meet the needs of the body's growth and development, at this time must add complementary foods to the baby. If you add boiled egg yolks, you can start from 1/4 per day and gradually increase to 1/3, 1/2, 3/4, until one boiled egg per day. From the baby 8 months began to add lean minced meat, liver puree, fish minced, animal blood, but also from less to more, gradually increasing. Vegetables are essential food for the baby after 6 months, and leaf vegetables are blanched with boiling water, which can remove most of the oxalic acid, which is conducive to the absorption of iron.
Dietary Rule number four: Supplement with vitamin c
Vitamin c is a good partner of iron, in addition to supplementing children with foods high in iron content, you must also give your baby to eat more fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin c to improve iron absorption. Fruits with high vitamin c include kiwi fruit, fresh dates, citrus and so on.
Food rule No. 5: Pay attention to cooking methods
The study found that the iron in fermented food is easier to absorb, such as steamed bread, cake, bread iron is more easily absorbed by the baby, so give the baby to eat these staple foods than ordinary noodles, pancakes, rice is more suitable. When giving the baby leaf vegetables, it is necessary to blanch them with boiling water first to remove most of the oxalic acid, which can let the baby absorb more iron.
