Everything grows in the spring, and children in the growth and development period are no exception. Many parents want to seize this golden season and "help" their children grow up. Calcium supplementation is the first reaction of most parents, as everyone knows, in fact, it does not directly promote the growth of height.
Song Cui, deputy chief physician of the Department of Endocrinology at the Children's Hospital Affiliated to Chongqing Medical University, said that when it comes to "growing tall", most parents will answer "calcium supplementation". This is not a bad thing, it means that parents take their children's height issues very seriously. But at the same time, such a statement is also very one-sided.
"The growth of height is mainly due to the increase in bone length, bone growth requires calcium, at the same time, the amount of calcium also determines the hardness of the bone." But calcium is definitely not the main driver of longitudinal growth of bones. More important is growth hormone and proteins and nutrients obtained from food. Song Cui said that therefore, growing tall is not only related to calcium supplementation, whether growth hormone and other growth-related factors are normal need to be fully evaluated.
Not only can it not directly promote the growth of height, but there are still hidden dangers in blind and excessive calcium supplementation. Song Cui pointed out that blindly and excessively supplementing calcium to children may cause children to eat less, indigestion, constipation, and even anorexia, puffiness, sweating and other discomforts, and even cause high blood calcium, kidney stones, iron zinc, magnesium and phosphorus and other mineral nutrient imbalances.
So how do we supplement calcium scientifically? Song Cui introduced that in fact, babies who are 0 to 1 year old who are exclusively breastfed can supplement vitamin D appropriately under the guidance of doctors to promote calcium absorption, and formula food feeders do not need to supplement calcium. 1 to 3 years old, to ensure a considerable amount of dairy products, coupled with a balanced diet and outdoor activities, do not need calcium supplements.
If the child appears: 1. Disease state, such as hypocalcemia; 2. Clinical examination of calcium or vitamin D deficiency indications (such as low bone density, high alkaline phosphatase, high calcium and phosphorus product); 3. low calcium intake (eg
At present, it is the golden season of children growing tall, how can parents help their children grow up scientifically? Song Cui gives 6 suggestions:
1. Meat and vegetarian collocation, balanced diet: Nutrition is a key factor affecting the growth and development of children, but it does not mean that the more you eat, the better, the more refined the better. In daily life, parents should avoid picky eating, anorexia, binge eating and irregular diet, and pay attention to the reasonable combination of children's diets to ensure a balanced intake of vitamins, proteins, calcium and various trace elements.
2. Ensure adequate deep sleep: Growth hormone is a hormone that promotes the growth of the human body, and the amount of secretion in the sleep state is about 3 times the amount of secretion in the awake state, so maintaining adequate sleep is conducive to growing tall. In addition, parents should create a good sleeping environment for their children, let the children quiet down before going to bed, and ensure deep sleep.
3. Regular, moderate exercise: exercise can also stimulate the secretion of growth hormone, but should be adjusted according to the child's own situation of the time and intensity of exercise, do not overdose, of which jumping sports, such as jump rope; stretching sports, such as swimming; comprehensive sports, such as balls and other effects are better.
4. Timely sunbathing: There is a substance called 7-dehydrocholesterol in the human skin, which will synthesize vitamin D under ultraviolet radiation. Vitamin D promotes calcium absorption. However, pay attention to avoid midday exposure, you can be before 10 am, after 4 pm moderate amount of sun exposure.
5. Understand the law of children's growth and development, early detection of problems: timely and regular measurement of children's height, to see whether the child's height, growth rate is lagging behind, so as to detect problems early and intervene.
6. To the qualified children's endocrinology specialist assessment, improve height: normal children at different times of growth rate is also different, generally full-term birth length of 50 cm, less than 47 cm indicates intrauterine growth retardation; growth in the first year after birth of 25 cm, the second year of growth of 10 cm, the beginning of the third to puberty growth rate of 5 to 7 cm per year average, the net height available throughout puberty is about 25 to 30 cm, but there are individual differences. If the child's growth deviates from this trajectory, the child should be taken to a regular, qualified pediatric specialist and endocrinology department to improve height.
The unsigned graphic author of this public account should contact this newspaper to pay the manuscript fee.