Vitamin C is one of the essential nutrients for children’s immune systems. Vitamin C deficiency will reduce children’s resistance and create opportunities for many diseases to attack. Therefore, parents need to learn the causes and signs of vitamin C deficiency in children to supplement them in time.
1. Benefits of vitamin C for children
Vitamin C – full name is ascorbic acid, is essential for the formation of collagen, cartilage and muscle, blood vessels, and neurotransmitters. Vitamin C has been studied by scientists very early and has shown many important benefits such as:
- Supplying adequate vitamin C has the ability to synthesize and form new collagen, thereby helping children heal wounds quickly
- Supplementing enough vitamin C daily will prevent the breakdown of various tissues in the body, helping children avoid stunted growth
- Vitamin C also helps the baby’s body effectively absorb other substances such as folic acid, calcium, iron, etc.
In addition, vitamin C is also an excellent antioxidant, helping to strengthen resistance, creating a solid “shield” for the body, against the risk of respiratory diseases (such as flu) and other common diseases (such as bleeding gums, swollen gums, anemia, infections, etc.), more dangerous are cancer, cardiovascular disease, arthritis.
2. Causes of vitamin C deficiency in children
In daily meals, mothers only need to supplement enough vitamin C to help children increase resistance and develop comprehensively. However, in some cases, children still show signs of vitamin C deficiency due to the following reasons:
- A diet lacking in vitamin C: Preparing meals for children is always a challenge for mothers, which is why it is easy to forget about vitamin C. In addition, many parents are so busy with work that they can only prepare a few dishes over and over again, which can easily cause their children’s diets to be lacking in vitamin C.
- Vitamin C from food is destroyed: Vitamin C is one of the most easily oxidized nutrients. If mothers do not pay attention to preparing food properly, it is very easy for vitamin C to be destroyed. Typically, cooking and frying at too high a temperature will cause vitamins to oxidize and lose their effectiveness. For children who are in the weaning period, mothers should steam vegetables and fruits and puree them for the baby to eat. For older children, you can directly supplement nutrients for your child through fresh fruit.
- Children have difficulty absorbing due to diseases: Diseases such as long-term diarrhea, malabsorption, malnutrition, liver and bile diseases, etc. also make it difficult for children to absorb vitamin C.
- Insufficient vitamin supplementation: In children who develop faster than their age, simply supplementing vitamin C through daily meals is not enough.
Signs of vitamin C deficiency in children are that they often have respiratory diseases, typically the flu.
3. Signs that your baby is lacking vitamin C that mothers should know
As mentioned, vitamin C is one of the essential substances for the resistance and development of children. Vitamin C deficiency not only reduces the resistance of children, but also makes children susceptible to many diseases and slow growth. Below are signs that your baby is lacking vitamin C that mothers should pay attention to:
- Swollen and bleeding gums
- Children often suffer from infections or diseases related to the digestive system, respiratory tract, typically the flu
- Children’s bones are curved and weak
- Children often have joint pain and dislocations
- Red spots appear on the skin
- Dry, dull skin
- Bruises often appear on the skin even without injury
- Children are weak, sleepy and lack energy
- Wounds and surgical wounds take a long time to heal
- Teeth are easily broken and fall out.
4. Foods containing vitamin C are good for babies
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the best time to start weaning is from 6 months of age onwards. At the same time, adding vitamin C to your baby’s diet at this time is also very reasonable and brings many benefits. Foods rich in vitamin C for weaning are mainly vegetables and fruits. For example: oranges, guava, strawberries, kiwi, cooked broccoli, peppers, etc.
For babies under 6 months of age, just breastfeeding enough every day is enough to provide the necessary amount of vitamin C without the need for additional supplements.
To help children improve their resistance and limit diseases caused by vitamin C deficiency, parents need to find out the causes and signs of vitamin C deficiency in their babies. Thanks to that, you can come up with the most scientific and effective methods of supplementing nutrients.
In addition to vitamin C, during this period, parents also need to pay attention to supplementing essential micronutrients such as: Selenium, Chromium, Vitamin B1 and B6, Ginger, Acerola extract (vitamin C),… Especially biological zinc to improve taste, help children eat well, reach standard height and weight and exceed standards, good immune system, increase resistance to get sick less often and have less digestive problems.
