All parents know how important calcium is for a growing child's body. But not everyone knows in what quantities and in what form this substance should be given to the child so that it is assimilated and beneficial. We will talk about this in this article.
Benefit
Calcium is good for children primarily because they are actively growing. It is very important for bones, teeth, nervous system, heart that this substance is present in the body in sufficient quantities.
But calcium itself does not represent any benefit, its properties are revealed only when interacting with other substances - vitamin D, magnesium, phosphorus.
Only in conjunction with vitamin D, calcium can be absorbed by the body, and only with magnesium does it provide protection for the heart and blood vessels. If there is not enough phosphorus, then calcium cannot independently strengthen bones and teeth. A child needs calcium not only for a fracture. Without it, there will be problems with muscle contraction and hematopoiesis, with the health of the thyroid and pancreas, gonads. Calcium deficiency adversely affects the general well-being of the child, his ability to learn, the baby's sleep becomes insufficiently strong and calm.
But the body needs calcium in certain quantities, because an overdose can harm no less a shortage. To calculate this amount, you need to know what the daily intake of this substance is.
Daily consumption rate
The World Health Organization has calculated and proposed the most optimal age-related dosages of calcium for children. The calculation took into account the rate of bone tissue renewal at each age, the body's costs to maintain the balance of salts and minerals:
- newborns and infants up to six months - 250-300 mg per day;
- children from six months to 1 year - 400 mg per day;
- babies from 1 to 3 years old - 600 mg per day;
- children aged 4 and up to 10 years - 800 mg per day;
- children from 10 to 13 years old - 1000 mg per day;
- adolescents 13 years of age and older - from 1200 mg per day.
For babies up to six months or even a year, you can not worry, because as long as they feed on mother's milk or an adapted milk formula, they will not have a lack of calcium.
Problems can begin when the child switches to a different diet, and complementary foods make up more than two-thirds of his daily food intake.
Symptoms and signs of deficiency
With great accuracy, the question of whether a child has a lack of calcium in the body can only be answered by a doctor, who will pre-assign the baby blood tests - general and biochemical, which will show how much mineral is contained (in mmols per liter), and also establish whether there is whether there is a deficiency of other substances important for the work of calcium - magnesium, phosphorus and vitamin D. Usually, the problem of lack of this substance is greatly exaggerated by the parents themselves, who are leading a completely healthy and strong baby to doctors with complaints of weak teeth or insufficient growth rates.
A real, real lack of calcium is called "hypocalcemia."
And this condition has quite independent pronounced symptoms:
- Increased excitability of nerve structures and muscles. This can be manifested by twitching of the eyelids, trembling of the wings of the nose, the corners of the mouth. In the case of a sufficiently strong shortage, convulsions may begin.
- Nails and teeth become brittle, easily injured, the nail plates become uneven, wavy.
- Growth slows down.
- The child has a heart rhythm disorder of the type of tachycardia or bradycardia.
- The child's sleep becomes restless.
- The child complains of a "tingling" sensation in the fingertips.
- Quite often, a child with calcium deficiency suffers from vomiting and diarrhea.
For a long time, hypocalcemia can hide behind other "masks", and sometimes do not give symptoms at all. Severe deficiency causes memory impairment, loss of consciousness, confusion and even hallucinations.
Deficiency reasons
A lack of calcium in a child can be for two reasons: either the mineral is chronically lacking in the food that the baby eats, or calcium is poorly absorbed and leaves the intestines, without fulfilling its main purpose. That is why, first of all, the doctor will take an interest in the child's diet, correct it, and advise what products should be given. If it's not about nutrition, then the cause will be in the state of the thyroid gland, because with a healthy "thyroid" with vitamin D, which helps calcium to be fully absorbed, everything is usually in order.
Possible other causes of insufficient calcium concentration may lie in:
- bowel diseases, in which the ability of the mucous membranes of the small intestine to absorb calcium and other substances is impaired;
- diseases of the pancreas, in which mineral salts are deposited "in reserve" in the area of fat necrosis;
- tumors of a rather large size;
- an excess of phosphorus, which can "wash out" calcium. This usually occurs when an infant is feeding cow or goat milk instead of an adapted formula;
- taking certain medications (diuretics, anticonvulsants, and even some antibiotics are very helpful in "washing out" calcium).
Consequences of a shortage
A child who suffers from a lack of this mineral will grow more slowly than his peers. Moreover, not only physical growth will suffer, but also mental activity. Another consequence of the shortage in babies is rickets. In addition, the child may develop scoliosis of varying degrees, curvature of other bones in the body.
Children deprived of the required amount of calcium are more prone to allergic reactions, their blood clotting is impaired, the kidneys and the cardiovascular system suffer. But hypocalcemia hits the child's nervous system the hardest hit. If the calcium deficiency is not eliminated in time, then changes in its work can be irreversible. These consequences include, in particular, multiple sclerosis.
Children's gums begin to bleed heavily, teeth decay and fall out. With a pronounced deficiency, softening of bone tissues may occur - osteoporosis, and this is fraught with fragility of the bone skeleton and frequent and complex fractures.
Excess mineral
Parents, frightened by the prospect of calcium deficiency in a child's body, often rush to buy drugs that contain this substance as soon as possible and start giving them to their babies.
This tactic is fundamentally wrong, because the uncontrolled and unreasonable intake of such drugs can lead to another problem - hypercalcemia, that is, an excess of calcium.
Symptoms of such an overabundance can also go unnoticed for a long time, and only at the "finish" the condition will be complicated by vomiting and prolonged diarrhea, renal colic, high blood pressure. The child will begin to consume a lot of fluids due to strong constant thirst, and urination will become frequent.
This condition is dangerous for its complications, among which acute renal failure is the most "harmless" echo of the disease. Hypercalcemia can lead to cardiac arrest, coma.
Medications
Calcium preparations should not be given to a child for prophylaxis, "just in case." They are needed only when the doctor, based on laboratory tests, made a conclusion about the presence of hypocalcemia (lack of substance).
Quite often, the very fact of a deficiency is revealed when other diagnoses are made, but in this case, calcium preparations are also prescribed. Such ailments include rickets, thyroid pathologies, severe allergic reactions (both acute and chronic), various skin diseases, and blood clotting disorders.
All preparations containing the required mineral are sold without a prescription. In the form of solutions for injection, these drugs are used by doctors of hospitals and ambulance teams to provide emergency care in emergency situations - they are injected into a vein in case of anaphylactic shock, with severe convulsions and bleeding (especially with a large loss of blood), with an acute allergic reaction, which threatens human life.
To correct the lack of calcium in a child for diseases that do not require urgent hospitalization, tablets are usually used. There are a great many of them today. Let's try to tell you about the most popular ones.
- Calcium gluconate. Tablets of this drug can be bought in two versions - hard and chewable, but their dosage is currently the same - 500 mg. The tool effectively restores the deficiency of ionized calcium and is the most prescribed for pediatric patients. Children do not need ampoules with calcium gluconate, although they can also be seen in the pharmacy, since their use is allowed only for adults and only in urgent cases.
Children are recommended to give the drug before meals or an hour and a half after it, pre-crushed tablets should be taken with plenty of liquid. At the same time, it is important to observe the age dose, as well as adhere to the WHO recommendations on the daily calcium requirement of children. Analogs - "Calcium gluconate - Lect", "Calcium gluconate stabilized".
- Calcium chloride. In general, adults are more familiar with this drug under the popular name "chloride". And they do it intravenously for a variety of diseases. For children, the drug exists in the form of a drinking solution, the concentration of the macronutrient is 5%.
By itself, the drug is not suitable for all children, since it irritates the stomach in particularly sensitive patients.
But quite often doctors prescribe this remedy to babies for electrophoresis procedures. In this case, liquid chlorinated calcium has a safer effect.
- Calcium lactate. This is a calcium supplement that is available only in tablets. It is much better tolerated by children than calcium chloride and is therefore the preferred drug for correcting calcium deficiency. From side effects, slight heartburn is possible.
- Calcium D. This combination drug is used to treat children of all ages, including infants. A syrup containing, in addition to the main substance, vitamin D, can be given to children from 1 month. The syrup is convenient to take, there is no need to calculate the dosage of calcium separately, since the instruction prescribes no more than 2.5 ml once a day for children over 6 years old, and 7.5 ml (for three doses) a day for children from 6 months to 6 years. Children under one year old are given the same dose, also three times a day, but diluted with breast milk or water.
- Complivit "Calcium D3" (for babies). This is a powder from which it is quite easy to prepare a suspension that tastes and smells pleasant at home. The advantage is that it is not necessary for the baby to crush and crush tablets, mix them with milk or water, while calculating the dose of calcium in the resulting mixture. It will be enough for parents to simply add water to a bottle of powder and measure out the required amount of suspension for a single dose with a measuring spoon.
- Tyanshi. A powder that consists of calf bones, eggshells, milk powder and some vitamin supplements. Their powder is not made as a drink, but as a food additive. The diluted drug can be added to a child's porridge, cottage cheese or a milkshake. Officially "Tianshi" is not considered a drug, it has the status of a dietary supplement.
- Calcium glycerophosphate. It is a pill formulation that effectively compensates for both calcium and phosphorus deficiencies. In order for both substances to reach their destination, it is not recommended to give the child to drink it with milk. In pharmacies, the product is sold in tablets and granules. Together with the drug, to achieve greater success in treatment, it is recommended to give the child separately vitamin D and vitamin C.
- Calcium Hopantenate. This is a preparation that contains calcium along with magnesium. This combination makes it a remedy that has a beneficial effect on blood formation and blood supply, including the brain. That is why the drug has the status of a nootropic drug, and is prescribed to children not only with calcium deficiency, but also with associated depression, sleep disturbances, with neuroses and hyperactivity. It is usually prescribed by pediatric neurologists. Parents' reviews of the drug are generally positive, but some emphasize that in children prone to allergies, it sometimes causes an unwanted skin reaction.
- Marine baby calcium. It is a dietary supplement that comes in different forms - with iron, with magnesium, with taurine. It is not recommended as a full-fledged therapeutic agent in cases where the child needs exactly medicinal doses of calcium. It is good to add it to your child's food as an additional source of nutrients, vitamins, trace elements and minerals.
- Finnish calcium Weleda Aufbaukalkki. This is a fairly expensive vitamin complex from Finland. It differs from all existing calcium and vitamin preparations with its supplements in that it offers a differentiated intake of the mineral. One tablet with certain excipients in addition to calcium is taken in the morning, and the other - different in composition - in the evening.
Features of calcium-containing preparations
The peculiarities of all drugs that have this mineral in their composition are that they must be taken in conjunction with meals. Some drugs are strictly before meals, others only after.
This nuance plays an important role in the more efficient absorption of the substance in the body. Preparations that contain auxiliary vitamins (D3, for example), as well as combined medicines with magnesium or phosphorus, are best taken with plain water rather than milk.
In order to prevent an overdose, it is important to take a biochemical blood test several times with prolonged use to find out the calcium concentration. How to properly dilute tablets and suspensions is written in the instructions for use for each specific drug. You shouldn't violate these instructions.
List of calcium rich foods
It is a mistake to think that only milk is rich in calcium, and it is wrong to give it to a child who, for some reason, cannot tolerate dairy products at all.
Cow's milk, like goat's milk, is a rather insidious product. When given to infants, the risk of calcium deficiency increases, contrary to all expectations. After all, the amount of phosphorus contained in whole milk is capable of "flushing" even a sufficient amount of calcium from the intestine in its original form. It is for this reason that before, when there were no milk formulas, and the artificial people were fed with cow's milk, there were so many children with rickets.
Today, there is no urgent need for cow or goat milk, besides, you can scoop up calcium reserves in other products that contain this mineral in large quantities.
In the child's diet must be:
- sea fish (especially sardines) and seafood;
- seaweed;
- rosehip;
- cabbage;
- potatoes;
- dried apricots and figs;
- spinach;
- garlic;
- beans;
- sesame;
- greens - mint, thyme, dill, parsley.
You can cook your own foods fortified with calcium.Cottage cheese with calcium chloride is very popular. His recipe is pretty simple. For him you will need milk and the usual pharmaceutical drug "Calcium chloride" in ampoules (at a concentration of 10%). For half a liter of milk, take no more than a spoonful of solution. The milk is heated, a pharmaceutical preparation is poured into it. After the contents of the saucepan are "curdled", the thick part is thrown onto a sieve, and the whey is drained.
Doctors often recommend giving such cottage cheese to children after fractures, as it allows the skeletal system to recover sooner. Children who find it difficult to tolerate regular curd will be able to digest calcified curd more easily, since it requires fewer digestive enzymes to digest it.
Doctor Komarovsky will tell you how much calcium you need to consume daily in the next video.
