Iron deficiency in the body will not show anemia soon, and iron deficiency may endanger the baby's health before anemia appears. In addition to affecting hemoglobin production, iron deficiency also affects myoglobin synthesis, reducing the activity of some enzymes in the body, thus affecting the functions of various organs in the body.
Iron deficiency will lead to anemia, affect the baby's intellectual development, and also lead to the decline of body resistance, easy to infect diseases.
What is anemia?
Anemia is one of the four common diseases in pediatrics, among which iron deficiency anemia is the most common. As the name implies, iron deficiency anemia is a small cell hypochromic anemia caused by the reduction of hemoglobin synthesis due to iron deficiency in the body, with the highest incidence among infants aged 6 months to 2 years.
Mild anemia generally has mild symptoms and no obvious signs. When the baby has certain anemia symptoms, the baby's anemia is mostly moderate anemia.
Why does the baby have anemia?
1. Inadequate iron storage
The fetus gets the most iron from the mother in the last three months of pregnancy, so preterm birth, twins, multiple births, fetal blood loss and severe iron deficiency during pregnancy can make the fetus have insufficient iron storage.
2. Insufficient iron intake
This is the main reason for iron deficiency anemia. The iron content in human milk, cow milk and grains is low. If iron rich food is not added in time, iron deficiency anemia is likely to occur.
3. Growth and development factors
The growth and development in infancy is fast, especially the weight in the first three months, five months and one year old is twice and three times of the birth weight respectively.
With the weight increase, the blood volume will also increase rapidly, and the hemoglobin in the blood will increase twice. The weight and hemoglobin increase times of immature children will be higher. If iron rich complementary food is not added in time, it will easily lead to iron deficiency anemia.
4. Obstruction of iron absorption
The food mix is unreasonable, which affects the absorption of iron. At the same time, chronic diarrhea not only leads to poor iron absorption, but also increases the amount of iron lost.
5. Too much iron loss
Normal infants excrete more iron every day than adults, with iron content of 0.5mg per 1ml of blood. Long term chronic blood loss can lead to anemia, such as intestinal polyps, hookworm disease, etc., which can lead to chronic blood loss. Babies fed with unheated fresh milk can cause intestinal bleeding due to allergy to milk.
