DAIRY: A Cause of Iron Deficiency in Children

Iron deficiency in infants is overlooked all the time until an event (i.e. seizure, fainting with emotional exacerbation (crying), eating dirt, chronic infections) occur that force a parent to take their child in to be evaluated. And even then, many times their primary care doctor will overlook iron deficiency, all the while the child suffers.

Toddlers and children often don’t know any different, so if their tired, irritable, whiny, no sleeping well, taking naps often, they and their care giver will often chalk it up to that is just their personality or they are probably teething, they just need more sleep compared to their siblings, or even their skin is just a light complexion compared to their siblings.

Even adults often overlook iron deficiency as it comes on so insidiously unless there was acute blood loss just prior to symptoms showing up.

Many children go from breast milk to cows’ milk, if the mother was low in iron reserves in the womb or during breastfeeding, then her baby will be low also.

Then if the child is switched to cow dairy and consumes milk consistently, they are at a very high risk of iron depletion. This can come via micro trauma to in their digestive tract from the cow milk ingestion. This response occurs in 40% of otherwise healthy infants who consume dairy.

Another thing to consider is febrile seizures and their link to iron deficiency.

A febrile seizure is when a child gets a fever and it spikes quickly inducing a seizure. These are generally harmless but very scary for those involved.

Getting CBC, Iron and ferritin levels checked is a simple, inexpensive way to ensure low iron is not the cause of the febrile seizure as well as that the amount of cow’s milk your child is consuming is reasonable related to their ability to absorb and utilize iron.

If your child is iron deficient then you want to replenish their levels right away. This will likely require iron supplementation, increasing red meat intake, and greatly reducing cow milk intake to less than 16 ounces per day until iron levels are optimized.

There are so many things to consider as a parent in relation to raising our kids to experience optimal health. Ensuring they have enough iron is simple one as long as we are aware of it.

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