The thin child: the reasons, what to do?
The most terrible dream of moms and grandmothers in the worldis a thin child. For some reason, it is considered that a toddler, who is grown by all rules, should be plump, with pink cheeks. Any other appearance of the karapuza is perceived as a sign of his malnutrition or some morbidity. Most often, caring parents slightly exaggerate the problem, but the fact remains: always need to monitor the weight of the baby. Loving moms literally daily ask themselves questions, looking at the slender legs and hands of their crochet: do they feed it right, do they offer the right foods, do they have enough of their vitamins? We will try to answer these questions and pay attention to what needs to be done so that the arrow of scales gradually moves upwards.
Are you worried or not?
Often parental disturbances are completelygroundless. The constitution of the baby depends not only on his health in general and about how and what he eats. And so it is clear: if the parents-grandparents are not of a gigantic constitution and do not have excess weight, then a very small percentage of that the baby will grow in a plump carapuzik.
It must be understood that if a very thin childate, he will not gain weight instantly, and a huge dish of floury delicacies will not make him an exact copy of fat children from a neighboring house. But if you force a baby to eat intensely, it can only aggravate the situation and develop a disgust for the baby with the food offered.
Types of thinness
Agree or, on the contrary, disagree withthese fears can only be after consultation with specialized specialists. Modern medicine has comparative tables, according to which you can determine the normal weight for the child. This indicator will depend on the growth, age, sex and activity of the baby.
If a pediatrician has a defect in weight,look for its cause. There are two types of thinness. Healthy - when the body structure is conditioned by a predisposition in connection with genetics. Pathological - it will be the result of the impact on the body of a disease or delayed development.
In the first case, you can defeat a small body weight, simply by using the normalization of the baby's nutrition. In the second, timely, adequate treatment will come to the rescue.
We study the results of analyzes
Do not immediately sound an alarm, asking foreverthe question of why the child is thin. Because of what it happens, we will consider later. As a rule, loss of appetite refers to the source of thinness. This happens for physical or psychological reasons. It has long been known that if a crumb got sick with ARVI, a sore throat, some other infectious diseases, he loses a tenth of his weight. But after only two or three weeks is fully able to recover the pounds spent.
Equally common is the factorpsychological. A lot of emotional excitement, stresses received in kindergarten or school, caused by misunderstanding or novelty, lead to depression, apathy. The consequence is a disturbance in the digestive system.
There are cases that everything seems to be in order, and thinchild. In this case, the loss of body weight is due to parasites. Babies may not always follow the rules of personal hygiene, so helminths are not uncommon for them. If a cricket has a habit of taking everything in his mouth, if he is reluctant to wash his hands and loves to hug all domestic dogs and cats, the likelihood that he has worms in his body is quite high.
But anyway, before you panic, you mustconduct a comprehensive examination of the baby's body for the presence of pathologies. To understand whether there is any deviation from the norm, you can by studying the results of the analysis of blood, urine, feces, ultrasound and X-ray of internal organs.
Why do babies gain weight slowly? They are just undernourished
Causes of very slow weight gain in infantsshould be considered separately. Newborns, because they can not talk, can not explain to their mother what bothers them. Therefore, parents should carefully monitor the slightest changes in the health of crumbs. The most common source of abnormality is malnutrition. A thin child in a year or only three to four months old may be due to the fact that he eats little. Mom in this case can weigh the baby before and after feeding. Having collected several indications of changes in the body weight of the baby, she should inform this information to the treating doctor. If all suspicions are confirmed, then he can appoint additional nutritional mixtures that will help to cope with the situation.
Activity of children does not allow them to recover
When mom makes up a ration of crumbs at the age ofolder than five months old, she should consult a specialist. Quite often there is a violation of the absorption of nutrients due to the fact that there are not enough vitamins, fats or carbohydrates.
The baby grows up, starts to crawl, then learns to walk. So it becomes more active.
In this case, thin children, photo which can be seen in the article, are not sick children. Simply they can now carry out many movements, due to what they are hard to recover.
The main thing for a mother is to know: if her baby is a little behind in weight from her peers, but at the same time very seldom sick, and develops physically and mentally right, she should not worry and worry. After all, in the overwhelming majority of cases, this is either a predisposition transmitted by inheritance, or a feature of the structure of the baby's body.
Important reasons: food and heredity
There are six main reasons why a small child is thin and a child is slightly older.
The first reason. The crumb does not eat up with milk. This can be even when he spends about half a day on his mother's breast. And yet the baby will remain slender because of the fact that he sucks badly, his mother does not have enough milk, or when he is eating, he just falls asleep. It is necessary to track how much one can drink a little one at a time. If the figure is less than the norm, the pediatrician will teach him how to apply it correctly to his chest and even tell him what means can be purchased in order to strengthen lactation. Sometimes a doctor may recommend supplementing a baby with a mixture if it is less than four months old, or with vegetable puree if it is aged 4-5 months.
The second reason. The figure is inherited from ancestors. The thin child maybe not because he is sick. Just his figure he inherited from his parents, grandparents, aunts-uncles. Both the height and weight of the baby are largely dependent on the genes. If the mother and father are slender, in most cases, their karapuza complex will be the same (although, in this case there are some exceptions). If a baby is born not very large, but it is absolutely healthy and weight gaining steadily (even if a little less than it is required by the average rate), mom should not worry.
And then a thin child is always more dexterous and mobile than plump. Such children often have better health than their peers-strong.
Important reasons: taste preferences and diet
The third reason. The kid does not like the taste of new products. It so happens that kids refuse to eat from a bottle or from a spoon, instead of sucking their breasts. They do not agree to eat mashed potatoes - both vegetable and fruit, kashki, curds. But in this case, do not immediately get upset, if in the early days of complementary feeding the carapace begins to be capricious and does not want to eat. Mom should have patience and for several days carefully offer him complementary foods. One day, a baby will try out adult food and take pleasure in absorbing it in the future.
The reason is the fourth. Mom wrongly made up the children's diet. A baby grows, but does not recover, the child is thin. What to do in this situation? Mom should take the habit of adding for every 100 g of vegetable soup 3-5 grams of vegetable or butter. If the baby is very thin, you can even add oil to the mullet and desserts. A monotonous diet and more than necessary, the amount of sugar in the dishes can also be the reason for the small weight of the baby.
Important causes: mobility and disease
The reason is the fifth. The crumb is quite agile. Karapuzu does not sit in one place. He always does something: creeps, turns over from his tummy to the back, waving his arms and legs. A lot of energy is spent on all these actions. Therefore, the child remains thin, because the fat does not have time to be deposited, because the calories burned with food are consumed very quickly.
The sixth reason. Baby is sick. If it happens that first the baby develops well, but at some point it stops gaining weight. In this case, you need to consult a pediatrician. It happens that the cause of all this is disease, such as celiac disease or cystic fibrosis. In addition, Mom should pay attention to the fact that the worsened appetite and a rare weight loss may be due to the fact that the body has a parasite.
If the baby is a little behind the generally acceptedindicators of growth and weight (regarding his age), but at the same time he feels well and properly develops, acquires new skills in accordance with time, then parents do not have to worry.
What to do?
Yes, it happens that, despite all the efforts of parents, a thin child remains. The reasons were outlined above. So it is already clear that far from all cases it is necessary to desperately sound the alarm.
Mothers need to remember: for a baby a bad appetite is not dangerous. The child's body has one magic mechanism that allows you to determine how much food and what exactly it needs to eat to grow and develop normally. But if the baby is still a bad eater, then the doctor's observation will be very helpful: he will tell you what substances are not enough for crumbs and what can replace them.
The main thing is that the kid does not have any unpleasant associations from food. After all, my mother has no purpose to make the crumb eat. She needs to create conditions for him to want to eat.
If my mother is too worried aboutpoor appetite of her baby, it is better to offer him small portions for a while, that is, the food in the plate should be slightly smaller than usual. When the baby sees a full bowl of soup or porridge, he realizes that all this must be eaten, or the mother will scold. This can further reduce his appetite. Therefore, it is better to put a teaspoon of vegetables, as much meat or as much flour food. And when the kid is eating all this, praise him and ask if he does not want supplements. He will need only a few days to figure out and ask for an additive from his mom on his own. So the appetite can become much better.