Anemia- what is it?

Anemia describes any of many disorders that decrease your red blood cell quantity (referred to as hematocrit or packed red cell volume).  In toddlers this is most commonly due to insufficient iron in the diet.  Commonly this iron deficience occurs because of too much cow's milk in the diet (we recommend limiting your child's cow's milk to 16 ounces daily in order to supply sufficient calcium without pushing iron out of the diet).

We routinely screen all children at 1 year of age for anemia.  This is a common age for anemia to develop.  If undiagnosed and untreated, at this age, it can lead to permenant learning disability, mental retardation or even heart failure.  Anemia is screened with a simple complete blood count (CBC) or even a hemoglobin or hematocrit which can be done in your doctor's office.

I typically also screen at 2 years of age because I find too many children who were missed at 1 year of age.

Realize that not all anemia's are due to low iron and that ONLY iron deficient anemia's should be treated with iron.  Overdoses of iron need to be avoided at all costs because of the risk of a complication of iron overload called hemosiderosis which is potentially fatal.  Iron replacement needs to be monitored carefully with frequent checks of hemoglobin and serum iron and feratin (a measure of total body iron stores) levels.

Iron deficient infants need to be carefully examined to rule out signs of heart failure as well.