Although most children in the first world who have had adequate prenatal care and good nutrition throughout early childhood get most of their needed nutrients from their diet, there are some supplements that dieticians recommend for growing children. Suppose your child has any kind of digestive issues or other problems that can affect the absorption of nutrients, such as celiac disease, cancer, cystic fibrosis, or inflammatory bowel disease. In that case, you should have direct contact with a dietician and a pediatric specialist to help you make sure that they are getting all the nutrition their growing body needs.
Best Vitamin Supplements For Toddlers And Children
Toddlers should be getting most vitamins through diet to grow healthy and strong, but if you have a very picky eater on your hands, you might want to consider adding supplemental vitamins into the child’s diet. Another specific thing that might require additional vitamins is if you have your toddler on a vegan diet.
Kids on plant-based diets are potentially at risk for certain deficiencies. Calcium, iron, zinc, and vitamin B12, and vitamin D could all be lacking if there is not a great effort to make sure enough is available in the diet. These nutrients are all needed for the average growth of body tissues. This is especially true if your child eats very little or no animal products. A diet lacking in enough B12 can be hazardous if a child’s diet is plant-based. This nutrient is almost exclusively found in animal products and is not easily replaced with dietary supplements or fortified foods.
The failure to replace these specific nutrients in a child’s diet can lead to severe issues and delays in growth and development. It is possible for a child on a plant-based diet to get enough of these essential nutrients to maintain optimal and healthy growth, but the parent must take great care to make sure the child’s diet contains adequate nutrition. Adding enough of the correct plant-based or fortified foods to give growing bodies enough of the nutrition needed, problems in vitamin deficiencies can be avoided.
There are lots of trustworthy and great-tasting gummy multivitamins out there to help make sure that the dietary needs of toddlers and school-aged kids are met. Lots of companies make vegan-based vitamin b complex for kids, as well as multivitamins and other supplements. Consult your pediatrician to ensure that your toddler or school-aged child is getting adequate nutrition and is thriving on a vegan diet, and is growing at a rate as he or she should.
Best Vitamins For Teens
When teenage girls begin menstruating, it isn’t that uncommon for them to develop a mild iron (Fe) deficiency, especially during the week of menstruation. This can sometimes lead to scary dizzy spells or even brief losses of consciousness. A simple blood test will diagnose iron deficiency. When taking an iron supplement, or a multivitamin that has added iron, be aware that it can turn the stool black and sometimes cause minor constipation. Make sure your teenager drinks lots of water if she is taking an iron supplement.
Another nutrient low in teenage girls is folic acid (also known as folate or vitamin B-9). This can potentially be very harmful in the case of an unexpected pregnancy. Low folic acid levels can cause neural tube defects in the fetus and lead to severe or even deadly spinal cord/neurological problems such as Spina Bifida and anencephaly. Other issues from this deficiency include Cerebral Palsy, blindness, congenital heart problems, cleft palate/cleft lip, and Gastroschisis.
Neural Tube Defects are the leading cause of infant mortality in the first trimester of pregnancy. The terrifying list of congenital problems that they can cause can be easily prevented by taking a prenatal vitamin every day. Even if your teenage daughter is nowhere near the place in her life where she is taking a prenatal vitamin in anticipation of a planned pregnancy, it can potentially prevent a surprise pregnancy that also results in a severely disabled child being born. Many teenage girls are prescribed prenatal vitamins for this reason, even when they are actively taking birth control at the same time.
