From 1999 to 2000, my country conducted a survey on vitamin A for children aged 0-6 years old. The results showed that many children had vitamin A deficiency, especially in rural poverty. area.
Image source: “Survey on Vitamin A Deficiency in Children Under 6 Years Old in China”
WHO has also estimated that about 1,900 pregnant women and 190 million preschool children in the world are vitamin A deficient. This phenomenon is mainly concentrated in some countries in Africa and Southeast Asia.
The key reason for the severe vitamin A deficiency in these places is the lack of local intake of eggs, meat, and green leafy vegetables.
Seeing this, many mothers will be anxious. Then my children don’t like to eat meat, eggs, and green leafy vegetables. Does that mean vitamin A is also lacking, should I supplement it?
This has to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis, not if you want to make it up.
The growth, development and health of the human body require the participation of various nutrients, and there are 13 kinds of vitamins necessary for the human body, and vitamin A is one of them.
Vitamins are divided into two categories: fat-soluble and water-soluble.
Fat-soluble vitamins are only soluble in fats and organic solvents, not in water. If you take too much of these vitamins and accumulate in the body, it will cause a burden on the body and be detrimental to the body. Water-soluble vitamins are soluble in water, and even in excess, they can be excreted through urine and sweat.
Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin, so taking too much can affect your health.
The role of vitamin A mainly has these five aspects:
1. Maintain visual function, improve the dark adaptation ability of eyes at night, and prevent night blindness. When we go from day to night, our eyes have to adapt to this process of turning from bright to dark. If the body is insufficient in vitamin A, at night, the light becomes darker, and the eye’s ability to adapt to this process is weakened, and night blindness will occur in severe cases. Can’t see anything.
2. Maintain the integrity of the skin and mucous membranes, so that the skin will not be rough and desquamated. When vitamin A is sufficient, it will make the skin softer and smoother and keep the skin in good condition.
3. Maintain and improve immune function. Vitamin A can promote immune cells to produce antibodies, improve immune function, and keep the body healthy. If your immune system is low, your baby can get sick easily.
4. Promote growth and bone development. Vitamin A can promote protein synthesis, which is conducive to the growth of bones, so that the baby grows taller and faster.
5. Vitamin A is an antioxidant that inhibits tumor growth. There are data showing that the levels of vitamin A and beta carotene in the blood of cancer patients are relatively low.
What are the symptoms and harms of vitamin A deficiency?
Lack of vitamin A can cause dry, rough, scaling, and decreased dark-adaptive ability of the eyes, which is commonly referred to as night blindness.
In the past, due to the low living standard, some children were often seen with night blindness. Now the living standard has improved and the material life has been enriched, but there are still many cases of vitamin A deficiency.
Severe deficiency of vitamin A can also affect the growth and development of infants and young children, resulting in slow bone development and affecting the child’s height.
And it will also lead to low immunity, prone to respiratory and digestive diseases, and some iron-deficiency anemia.
Therefore, we cannot ignore the importance of vitamin A to the health of babies.
How to properly supplement vitamin A?
As mentioned earlier, the various effects of vitamin A on the human body, and the lack of vitamin A will have a great impact on the growth and development of babies, so how should vitamin A be supplemented correctly?
There are two ways to supplement vitamin A: dietary supplements and medicinal supplements.
Look at dietary supplements first.
The internal organs in meat foods are rich in vitamin A, such as pork liver, chicken liver, etc.; deep-sea fish are also relatively high in vitamin A, such as salmon; and lean meat and eggs It is also rich in vitamin A.
In addition to meat, some vegetables and fruits are also rich in vitamin A. Such as dark green vegetables: spinach, lettuce, etc.; orange-yellow vegetables: carrots, pumpkins, etc., and fruit cantaloupe, mango, etc.
It can be supplemented by consuming these foods rich in vitamin A. And under normal circumstances, as long as the child has a balanced diet, there is no need to take additional vitamin A supplements.
Of course, if the child is a serious picky eater and partial eclipse, he can also supplement vitamin A through supplements, but it must be supplemented under the guidance of a doctor. The dosage is different for different ages.
This is related to the possibility that vitamin A supplementation will cause poisoning, which generally does not happen. Because each nutrient has the ability to remove the mirror and remove the mirror
According to the standard, the daily upper limit of vitamin A is 2000IU for babies of 0-12 months, and the upper limit of vitamin A is 2333IU for babies of 13-36 months. This situation will not occur in daily diet. , unless you give your baby a lot of animal liver every day.