>Any advice to a mom whose 15 month old twice a day breastfed baby has been
>diagnosed with severe anemia (level 10.9) and prescribed Fer-in-sol for
baby 1
>ml three times per day?    Mom afraid to give baby too much
>medication.  Is this too much?  Baby eats well at lunch at daycare, picks at
>breakfast and dinner.

Loni, I would recommend that she go to a health food store and get a food
iron supplement for children.  This would be better assimilated, quickly
resolving the anemia, and without the hazards of overdosing with ferrous
sulfate. The high level is probably an attempt at hastening the resolving
of the anemia--which by some standards is not exceptionally low. But so
little of ferrous sulfate is assimilated that a lot must be given to
achieve the desired results.

And I suggest that the child's low appetite for breakfast and dinner be
addressed.  A zinc deficiency is a possible cause. I have posted on this a
few times and a search in the Archives under zinc will bring up the post.
Actually the original was in 1996, so you would search in Lactnet95-96. Let
me know if you have trouble finding it.

Also...FOOD.  Iron-rich foods should be the staple in the "weaning diet."
And I don't mean food that ferrous sulfate has been added to.  A good book
on nutrients and their common sources would help the mother to select foods
that will help her child to build up his hemoglobin. With a little help it
is not hard to offer a child nourishing foods.

She is breastfeeding him twice a day.  Is she giving him a lot of dairy
foods as a source of calcium?  Too much dairy can create anemia.
Particularly with the small appetite of a child that age, reliance on dairy
can abate the appetite to the exclusion of more healthful foods.

Patricia Gima, IBCLC
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Upper Midwest, USA

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