Kiev. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate – January 3, 2021 – Health
To prevent the disease from developing, the child needs to be properly fed and walked!
We are accustomed to perceive some diseases as literary archaisms. Once they were, but now they seem to be gone. It is customary to rank among these and rickets. However, as the statistics show, it is too early to record this metabolic disorder among the disappeared. Rickets is found not only in children of low-income parents, but also in quite prosperous families. As pediatricians assure, there is a tendency of erroneous ideas about this ailment among the current generation of parents. Based on medical research, let’s try to dispel some of them.
The first misconception: rickets causes a lack of vitamin D.
The truth is different. Rickets and vitamin D deficiency are far from synonymous. This disease is caused by the symbiosis of vitamin D deficiency and calcium deficiency with phosphorus. Therefore, in order to prevent the development of the disease, it is necessary to provide the child’s body with the correct ratio between calcium and phosphorus in milk or artificial mixture. Breast milk is ideal for a baby, where calcium is 2 times more than phosphorus. And in breast milk there are special proteins that regulate the absorption of calcium. Therefore, children who grow up on mother’s milk are less likely to get rickets.
The second important condition is movement. The kid must be able to wave his arms and knock his legs. Besides, he needs a massage. If for some reason the child is limited in movement, for example, his legs are fixed due to congenital subluxation of the hip, the risk of developing rickets immediately increases. Here in Africa, it would seem, how much sun! This means that babies produce enough vitamin D, but there are a lot of children suffering from rickets there. The reason is that African women traditionally swaddle their babies up to 4 months of age. The third place among the conditions of prevention is the intake of vitamin D.
Misconception number two: all babies growing up on breast milk substitutes are prone to rickets.
Not all. Of course, breast milk protects your baby better. However, in modern artificial mixtures there is a prophylactic dose of vitamin D and the ratio between calcium and phosphorus is “correct”.
When buying an artificial mixture, mom should read the composition on the package and remember the formula “calcium is twice as much phosphorus”. A balanced composition of the breast formula, massage, long walks in the air, preventive doses of vitamin D – all this can prevent the appearance of rickets in the “artificial”.
And a mother who is breastfeeding should take care of the quality of her food. She needs to eat at least 100 g of cottage cheese a day, drink 750 ml of milk or fermented milk products, take multivitamins … By the way, studies conducted by Russian scientists in Yekaterinburg have shown that many mothers have breast milk, alas, poor in calcium.
The third misconception: rickets is a disease of the poor.
Rickets is a disease of a growing organism; it occurs to a small extent in 50-60% of babies. If a baby is gaining weight very intensively, his bones lack calcium, phosphorus, vitamin D, which he receives from food. With the right approach, the child will recover in a few months.
The fourth misconception: all children of the northern countries are sick with rickets.
This is partly true. In regions where there is little sun, many cloudy days or long nights, the risk of developing rickets in children increases. In theory, all children of northern peoples should have rickets. But the northern peoples over the millennia have adapted to the polar night, and now they need less vitamin D than the southern ones. But the children of immigrants from the southern regions who were born in the north, where their parents moved, often and seriously suffer from rickets.
Today scientists look at this disease in a different way and have found that provoking factors should also include:
Life in a metropolis. Smog over the city poorly transmits the rays of Dorno – the sun’s rays of a certain length, under the influence of which a vitamin is produced in the skin.
Born in autumn when there are few sunny days. Children born in spring or early summer are less likely to develop rickets.
A very young or, on the contrary, a middle-aged mother. The peak accumulation of bone mass in a woman is 25 years. A mother who has not reached 17 years of age herself still has insufficient calcium in her bones and cannot always give the right amount to the baby. And my mother, about forty, has already begun to lose calcium, it is also not easy for her to provide them with a child.
A “wiped” back of the head is a typical sign of rickets
When the hair on the back of the baby’s head is dry, do not postpone the visit to the doctor. Rickets in full swing. The first sign of the disease is that the baby’s head and forehead sweat while eating. And this symptom appears in a month or two. The mother holds the baby’s head on her arm and her arm becomes wet while feeding.
The second symptom is that the child’s sweat becomes “sour”. Mom kisses the baby and feels sourness. The acid-base balance in the body is disturbed, prickly heat occurs, which is difficult to get rid of by bathing alone. But if you start taking vitamin D, the acid-base balance will quickly be restored, and prickly heat will pass.
The third symptom is constipation, which appears as a result of general muscle hypotonia, including the muscles of the intestines. And at the same time, you can notice “red dermographism” – he touched the child’s skin, and a red mark remains on it, which melts in a minute or two.
If you see these signs in your baby, be sure to tell the pediatrician about it. Later, fearfulness appears, flinching in response to sounds, the child becomes restless, turns his head all the time, the hairs on the back of his head are wiped off and he becomes bald. And such symptoms as a flat nape, “frog belly” speak of a neglected case.
If you do not treat rickets, then this will result in not only crooked legs. The child will suffer from curvature of the spine, flat feet, weakness of the ligamentous apparatus. Weak breathing muscles and chest deformities can cause frequent bronchitis. Besides, untreated rickets spoils milk and permanent teeth. And at school age, it leads to myopia – the muscles of the eyeball are also weakened.