Contents
General description of the disease
Rickets is one of the worst childhood diseases. The name of the disease comes from the Greek word “rachitos” – spine. It is on this part of the skeleton that the disease strikes in the first place. Rickets affects the skeletal system of infants and early post-infants. In severe forms, damage to the internal organs of the child is also possible. The main danger of rickets is that it has a detrimental effect on the formation and development of the skeletal system. The consequences of severe rickets suffered in childhood haunt a person all his life and are practically incurable.
Read also our dedicated articles Bone Nutrition, Spine Nutrition, and Vitamin D Rich Foods
The first mentions of the symptoms of rickets are found in the works of ancient healers of the second century AD. In modern history, rickets was first described by the English scientist Whistler in 1645. Another Englishman, an orthopedist F. Gleason, deeply studied the symptoms and course of rickets. He also gave the disease its name.
The causes of rickets
Rickets occurs due to a lack of important vitamins, minerals and trace elements in the growing child’s body, mainly vitamin D. The following causes of the disease are distinguished:
- insufficient finding of the child in the fresh air, lack of natural sunlight;
- improper nutrition, early weaning of the child from the breast, the use of foods poor in vitamins and microelements to feed the child;
- metabolic disorders, especially in premature babies;
- violation by the mother of the diet during pregnancy;
- genetic predisposition.
Rickets symptoms
It is extremely important to identify the development of rickets in a child as early as possible. The first signs of the disease:
- the mother will surely notice changes in the behavior of the child, who becomes lethargic and moody
- during feeding, it is necessary to pay attention to the droplets of sweat on the baby’s face, a damp pillow after sleep should also cause alertness: excessive sweating is one of the signs of rickets
- it is necessary to regularly examine the head of the child: the developing rickets causes severe itching, the child constantly itches, from which characteristic alysins appear on the head.
A child with a disease in the middle stage is distinguished by a violation of the shape of the skull (excessively convex or, on the contrary, flattened forehead and parietal part), a fontanel that does not close for a long time, a curved spine, sunken, as if a depressed chest. When the child begins to walk, the abnormal O- or X-shaped legs are striking.
In a child with a severe form of rickets, a significant lag in physical and mental development is noticeable as a result of damage to the bones, internal organs and the nervous system.
Useful foods for rickets
Rickets is a serious and dangerous disease, the more important is its timely prevention. Probably the most important place among such remedies is proper nutrition.
It is important to start prevention of rickets even before the baby is born; proper nutrition of the mother significantly reduces the likelihood of this disease. It is necessary to fill the diet of the expectant mother with foods rich in vitamin D, such as:
- fish, especially sea fish – salmon, trout, herring, mackerel, sardine;
- liver – chicken, beef or fish (for example, cod liver);
- eggs – chicken and quail;
- greens – cilantro, parsley; you can try nettle borsch;
- vegetables – pumpkin, zucchini, squash;
- mushrooms, it is better not store mushrooms and oyster mushrooms, but forest mushrooms – boletus mushrooms, mushrooms, boletus mushrooms, russula;
- caviar.
Breast milk is an ideal food for an infant. If breastfeeding is impossible for one reason or another, it is necessary to replace it with formula. When choosing a mixture, it is important to pay attention to the content of vitamin D in its composition, as well as trace elements such as phosphorus and magnesium.
Vegetable purees with the addition of cabbage, pumpkin and zucchini should be included in the child’s complementary foods. From five months, you can give grated chicken liver. From seven months it will be useful to diversify the child’s diet with boiled leucorrhoea with meat and poultry. From about six months, the child needs to be given calcined curd, which can be purchased at the children’s dairy kitchen, or prepared by yourself. To do this, you should boil milk with a tablet of calcium gluconate (one tablet per 300-400 ml), and then ferment it in gauze, as in the preparation of ordinary cottage cheese.
If the child has signs of rickets development, then complementary feeding should be started as early as possible, adding fruit and vegetable juices to the milk.
The most important means of preventing rickets are walking and sunbathing. It is necessary for the child to stay in the fresh air and sunlight every day for at least 1-1,5 hours a day.
Folk remedies for the treatment and prevention of rickets.
- Cook two hundred grams of burdock roots over low heat in ten liters of water. Cool and take a bath for about a quarter of an hour.
- Insist three tablespoons of oregano in three liters of boiling water. Add to water before bathing.
- Brew a glass of pine needles with five liters of water, insist overnight. Add to baby bath.
- In a glass of boiling water, brew a spoonful of dry peppermint leaves. Give your baby a teaspoon one hour before feeding.
- Boil beets, carrots and cabbage (root vegetables must be peeled). The decoction should be given to the child to drink 5-6 times a day.
Attention!
The administration is not responsible for any attempt to use the information provided, and does not guarantee that it will not harm you personally. The materials cannot be used to prescribe treatment and make a diagnosis. Always consult your specialist doctor!