A Diagnosis Of Failure To Thrive: What Can Be Done?
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What Does This Diagnosis Mean For My Child?
Failure To Thrive is a label of lower than normal weight and height. Pediatricians identify this based on how your child matches a normal growth graph or on slow-downs in your child’s development progress. If not fixed this situation could affect the child’s normal advancement through the normal developmental stages.
Perhaps the pediatrician has indicated to you that it is just a nutrition issue and has given you some advice on what to do to raise your child’s level of nourishment. It is possible that you have to adjust your child’s food plan with the help of a nutritionist. Maybe the pediatrician has prescribed a special menu.
Maybe the pediatrician has found some specific medical ailment which is blocking your child’s ability to develop and grow. This could consist of physical conditions with the processes of taking in food and extracting the nutrients from it. It could possibly take into account a range of other medical problems such as heart or kidney disease, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, or even other problems.
Intolerances and Sensitivities
A growing number of people have begun to understand Failure To Thrive as a circumstance related to Intolerances and Sensitivities. This means that the child is reacting to some thing in the environment and these defending reactions are affecting the child’s development.
These sensitivities and intolerances are not like an allergic reaction. Allergies have an immediate response which might be as limited as some swelling or a rash and can be as intense as life-threatening anaphylaxis.
These sensitivities take a long time and multiple exposures to bring about responses. After continuous exposure to a single factor to which a person has intolerance and sensitivity, the response could be as simple as a little wheeze or light sniffles. When someone is responding to the compounding effects of multiple things to which they are sensitive or intolerant all stacked together, the defensive reactions would probably be more dramatic. When there are numerous simultaneous exposures, this leads to responses which influence a person’s health, emotions, and even behavior
Sensitivities And Failure To Thrive
In our practice, we recognize that infants with Failure To Thrive are very sensitive. We find that they have this intolerance and sensitivity to many environmental factors which they eat, breathe, or touch every day (and many times all day). With this continuous contact, they stay in a constant state of defending reactions.
For instance, we find it not uncommon for Failure To Thrive children to be sensitive to the chemical components in the laundry soap, dryer sheets, air fresheners, or other chemicals used in the household. When a child has these sensitivities and intolerances, they are constantly touching or breathing residue from these productsall day, every day. This constant contact puts them in a permanent state of defensive responses.
Because of this continual impact on their systems, their body needs to shut down non-essential functions to have the resources to survive. For many of thesevery sensitive children, this means shutting down the developmental process. This is non-essential for survival today, so by shutting that down, the body has more resources for survival, but the developmental process cannot proceed.
We have created a social networking site for parents of children with Failure To Thrive. If you want to understand more about Failure To Thrive and if you want to understand what to do for your child, visit and see what we have for you and your child. Get involved as we eradicate Failure To Thrive.