Malnutrition or Under nutrition

Introduction

Although malnutrition means under-nutrition, over-nutrition, vitamin deficiency, iron deficiency, calcium deficiency  and iodine deficiency.

A child is considered undernourished if he is below 8o% of his expected weight.

We should be seriously concern if the weight is below 65%  of the expected weight, or if the child fails or gain weight in 3 successive months. Thus a child whose expected weight is 10 kgs and who weighs less than 8 kgs is considered undernourished.  If he is less than 6.5 kgs, we should be much more  concerned and give extra attention to find the cause of his undernourishment.

Normal Variations

A child who is below his average weight,  but is active, full of life, gains weight slowly but surely and does not fall ill too often, is not ill. I would observe him for a couple of months and look for other common causes of under weight like the small size of his parents, low birth weight and failour to gain weight in the first few weeks of life from any cause which is rather difficult to be compensated later on.

Common causes of Under nutrition

• Premature termination of breast feeding
• Improper artificial feeding
• Delayed addition of complimentary foods
• Infections like diarrhea, urinary infection and tuberculosis and infestation with parasites
• Heart disease
• Emotional factor
• Diabetes

These causes are common to all socio-economic group, though less fortunate families will have children who remain undernourished because of common factors like poor purchasing capacity, lack of education, unsafe water supply,  poor environmental sanitation, and personal hygiene, coupled with certain wrong notions like serving a child  with diarrhea, undue restriction of  diet in jaundice, delayed addition of solids in a small infant, and giving infant dal water or thin soup containing very little energy.

Treatment

First, let the doctor confirm if the child is undernourished. Attend to his diet. The doctor may try to find out any possible cause that may be contributing to the under-nutrition and treat the same. She may than follow the weight of  the child on the same weighing scale to monitor the progress over a period of time.

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