Failure to Thrive Syndrome

Diagnosis and Treatment

Failure to thrive syndrome is a misunderstood and sometimes misdiagnosed medical problem that affects some children. It is characterized by poor growth and development in the early years of life. When you take your baby or young child to the pediatrician for check ups, the doctor will weigh and measure her, then plot the weight on a growth chart. While the growth charts show your baby’s percentile for height and weight, what the doctor is more interested in finding is the pattern of your child’s growth. Even if your child is larger or smaller than average, she should have her own unique growth pattern, and should consistently be gaining in height and weight.

During Childhood

The early childhood years are vital to a child’s proper development. Regular pediatric visits will determine if your child is developing normally according to already established patterns. While every child develops differently according to their own individual pattern, there are some concerns associated with a child that has an abnormally low rate of growth increase. Children who do not develop correctly may be suffering from a little known medical condition called failure to thrive syndrome.

Ability to Grow

The ability of a child to grow normally is sometimes taken for granted by several uninformed parents. As a result, some children develop a condition commonly referred to as failure to thrive syndrome (FTT). This is a serious condition that causes children to have an unhealthily low growth and development rate. This can be avoided with routine trips to you pediatrician. This will ensure a consistent monitoring of your child’s pattern of development and it can give you an idea if your child is showing symptoms of FTT. Your pediatrician will be able to tell you what steps can be taken to improve you child’s development rate.

What to Look For

Children who are diagnosed as failure to thrive often stop gaining weight or height. They may even take steps backwards and loose some weight. These children are small for their age, and often look malnourished, even though they are eating frequently. Having a child diagnosed as a failure to thrive case is a scary situation for a parent.

What to Do

The first course of action that most doctors will take (when treating the failure to thrive child) is examining the diet, and feeding patterns. They will examine your child’s diet to make sure that she is taking in enough calories for her size and age. If it appears that there are enough calories in her diet, he might have her tested for allergies. Food allergies or sensitivities, even if they do not lead to a dangerous adverse reaction, can cause the food your child is eating to not be absorbed properly by her body. Mal-absorption is a common cause of failure to thrive syndrome.

Medical treatment is the chief concern for parents who have a feeling that their child is suffering from failure to thrive syndrome. Parents can rarely be blamed for their child’s unusually low growth rate because they are often unaware of the complications causing the anomaly. Providing your child with the love and treatment that is necessary to correct the problem should be the primary concern of any parent rather than assuming a feeling of personal responsibility for the ailment.

Diet

A child’s food intake is the main focus when a pediatrician is treating a child with failure to thrive syndrome. Of course, the number of calories that a child consumes is a paramount concern. Too few calories can hinder a child’s growth and development. But there is the issue of mal-absorption, too. If a child has an unknown allergy to the foods that are being consumed, it can cause those foods to not be absorbed by the body in a nutritious or productive manner. As a result, the child has a tendency to suffer from the failure to thrive syndrome.

Other feeding issues might be gastrointestinal problems such as acid reflux disease or GERD. Since these diseases cause eating to be painful for your child, she might not eat as much as she should. Babies who are still nursing may have difficulties with their latch, which makes them appear to be eating while not actually taking in much milk.

When feeding issues are ruled out upon diagnosing a failure to thrive child, pediatricians often look for other health problems. At times, failure to thrive can indicate there is a more serious problem, such as heart disease, cystic fibrosis, and even juvenile diabetes.

How to Detect

When attempting to detect and treat a case of failure to thrive syndrome, a pediatrician can take several avenues. The predominant reason for most cases of this ailment is a result of malnutrition. Well-meaning parents may be unaware that they are not providing their growing child with a sufficient amount of calories to ensure proper growth and development. Also, parents may not be aware that their child has sensitivities or allergies to certain foods. These conditions will cause the child’s body to reject the food, thereby leaving it unabsorbed and providing little or no nutritional value. Consequently, this would lead to a case of failure to thrive syndrome also.

Watch Weight

Once the cause of the poor weight gain is established, the doctor will direct you as to the best course of action to get your child’s weight where it should be. Often, increasing the calories or changing the child’s diet is one option for treating failure to thrive. If a more serious medical condition is discovered, then this disease will be treated.

Parenting

It is important for parents of a child who is diagnosed as failure to thrive to realize that it is not their fault that their child is not growing like his or her peers. Guilt often haunts the parents of failure to thrive children. The most loving thing that these parents can do is to get their child the medical treatment they need, and not beat themselves up over their child’s condition.

Any parent who is concerned that their child may be suffering from failure to thrive syndrome should, first and foremost, seek medical treatment for their child. Dwelling on feelings of guilt or shame are not helpful to neither the parent nor the child. The importance does not lie in whom or what is to blame for the ailment, rather how to go about correcting it.

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