9 mo. old borderline anemic...to give supplement or not to? Need advice

[girlygirls3]

Hello... my 9 mo. old just tested borderline for anemia... my pediatrician has recommended an iron supplement. My DH and I have concerns about teeth staining and overdosing, but obviously want him to not be anemic as well. Has anyone here corrected low iron w/ diet as opposed to using a supplement? I was thinking of trying more iron rich foods, like egg yolks, molasses, etc. and also adding in some more baby cereal during the day and seeing at his 12 mo. appt. if his levels are up, but wanted to hear from the parents here to see if that has worked or can work. I'd also like to use Floradix as his supplement, but can't figure out what the dosage would be for his age group, as the only one I can seem to find is the adult version, the child version doesn't seem to contain iron...

[sbgrace]

I did not have luck correcting with foods and wish I hadn't let me son be low so long while I tried. Egg yolk is a poor choice because it contains iron but also a substance that strongly inhibits iron absorption and in fact it blocks iron from other sources. I've posted links before but basically in studies it's worse than even dairy and soy in terms of iron inhibition. Red meat is a good source of iron but it's hard to get enough to correct iron deficiency unless you use lots of liver and that's got it's own issues in terms of other minerals being consumed.

I used ferrous bis-glycinate which is also called ferrochel. It's got essentially no risk of overdose (in fact, it's what they add to those fortified cereals for that reason). You can google ferrochel and get lots of information. It's very well absorbed so corrects levels better and faster than other forms. I've never had a problem with teeth staining but if you did it can be removed easily (two dentists I asked both said it will come off with a regular dental cleaning but they don't usually see it).
Maxi iron is I think a liquid form of that iron. I use kirkman labs biomax (5 mg. hypoallergenic) capsules by putting the powder on a spoon with pear sauce.

But beyond all this is the baby breastfed? It's pretty rare for a child that age to be iron deficient (breast or formula fed). If you've got lots of foods like egg yolk that block iron that may be the issue. Any reflux meds? Has the baby had a lead level check? I'd want to figure out why he is low unless you already know.

[Pandme]

Iron rich foods worked for my son, but he started on solids at 8 months. He discovered that he loved to eat Morning Os as a snack and he went from a 10.5 at 9 months to a 12 or 13 at a year.

My daughter is a different story. She won't eat any solids, spoon-fed or otherwise so I am using Floravital (5ml) for her. She tested at an 8.9 hemo level at 10 months. I called the company about dosage because I definitely saw Floradix with infant dosage online but you had to order it from New Zealand. When I called the company to ask where I could get some here in the States they informed me about the dosage levels. It's all the same stuff....Floravital is just yeast/gluten free.

Why does everyone say it's so rare for a BF baby to be deficient? My pediatrician doesn't seem to think so....in his words, this was a case of BF anemia and it was not at all uncommon. THen you come here and everyone acts like they've never heard of such a thing .

[girlygirls3]

I was just going to post the same thing... my ped. said it's totally common to have a baby this age with a deficiency, and everything else I've been reading said the same thing. He is only breastfed, and his lead was tested at the same time and is fine. I did more research and have decided to give the supplement, apparently you'd need quite a bit of iron from food to get him back to where he needs to be, so for the next 3 months I'm going to add the supplement. Thanks for the info on floravital, I was looking at that and now will look further since you gave me the info on dosage info thanks!

[Pandme]

Originally Posted by girlygirls3

I was just going to post the same thing... my ped. said it's totally common to have a baby this age with a deficiency, and everything else I've been reading said the same thing. He is only breastfed, and his lead was tested at the same time and is fine. I did more research and have decided to give the supplement, apparently you'd need quite a bit of iron from food to get him back to where he needs to be, so for the next 3 months I'm going to add the supplement. Thanks for the info on floravital, I was looking at that and now will look further since you gave me the info on dosage info thanks!

You're welcome! I'm going through this right now too....such a pain. I decided to also take the Floravital....just to see how bad it tastes and because I could always use more iron and it isn't really that bad at all. She takes it without much complaint.