In order to supplement her 1 year-old son Xiao Xin with vitamins, Xiao Chen, a 28-year-old young mother, went to the market every other day to pick a fresh carrot and steamed it to make Xiao Xin's lunch.

At first, she didn't feel abnormal. After a month's persistence, she suddenly found that Xiao Xin's skin turned yellow, especially her face and soles. Xiao Chen thought Xiaoxin had liver disease and went to the hospital at once.

However, Xiao Xin's blood test results were normal. Han Guanglian, a professor of pediatrics at the hospital, asked that Xiao Xin ate steamed carrots for a month, during which he also ate three boiled corns. "This is the problem." Han Guanglian said that babies don't need treatment. As long as he stops eating these foods after returning to China, the situation will gradually improve.

Doctor: Eating too much carrots, pumpkins and papaya will cause problems.

Professor Wang Yuhua, director of pediatrics at the hospital, said that carrots contain a lot of carotene. If you take too much carotene, the liver can't convert it into vitamins, and the excess carotene will flow all over the body with the blood, and the baby's palm, foot palm, nose tip, nasolabial groove, forehead and other places will appear yellow dye, which is medically called "carotene anemia". In severe cases, it can spread to the whole body; At the same time, it may be accompanied by nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, general fatigue and other symptoms.

Wang Yuhua warned that not only carrots, but also corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, papaya, citrus and some green leafy vegetables all contain more carotenoids. If you eat too much, the above phenomenon will also occur.

Many parents want to supplement their children with vitamins, so they must know this knowledge before making up.

Which babies need vitamin supplements?

There are many kinds of vitamins, which can be roughly divided into water-soluble and fat-soluble. Fat-soluble vitamins include vitamin A. D. E. K, while water-soluble vitamins include B vitamins and vitamin C, etc. Although the demand for vitamins is very small, vitamins are an essential nutrient and necessary to maintain human life activities. They participate in almost all metabolic processes of the human body.

Generally speaking, babies can get most of the vitamins they need from breast milk or formula milk, including vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C and so on. Vitamin D is mainly obtained through sunlight supplement and synthesis. Older babies can also get most vitamins from milk and other diversified foods. However, there are also some special cases where babies need to supplement other vitamins besides vitamin D. These babies include:

(1) Premature, low birth weight and twin (multiple) babies. These babies are born with insufficient vitamins stored in their bodies and grow faster after birth, so they need a lot of vitamins and are prone to multivitamin deficiency.

(2) sick or recovered babies. The disease process will cause the loss of some vitamins. For example, a fever will decompose vitamins A and B and accelerate excretion; When diarrhea occurs, the absorption of various vitamins in the intestine is obviously reduced.

How to supplement vitamins for your baby?

Supplementing your baby with vitamins also needs to estimate which vitamins may be missing according to your baby's different conditions and make targeted supplements. Vitamin D deficiency is a common problem at present. It is suggested that every baby should be supplemented with vitamin D, but a small number of babies still have vitamin D deficiency even if they are given regular doses of supplements, so the supplementary dose should be increased on the basis of detecting the nutritional status of human vitamin D.

Vitamin A and vitamin B deficiency is more common in infants with fever and infection. Vitamin C supplementation helps to shorten the course of cold, and may have the effect of preventing cold. Therefore, for some babies who often catch a cold and get sick, it is recommended to supplement these vitamins.

Can excessive vitamin lead to poisoning?

Mothers are often worried about vitamin poisoning while supplementing vitamins to their babies. Generally speaking, water-soluble vitamins, such as vitamin C and B vitamins, are easily excreted with urine, and there are almost no reports of poisoning. Fat-soluble vitamins, such as vitamin A and vitamin D, can accumulate in the human body, which will cause poisoning if taken in large quantities for a long time.

In order to ensure that the baby supplements enough vitamins every day, most of the multivitamin preparations on the market now use small bottles, 2 weeks 1 month; Vitamin AD mixture, that is, cod liver oil, is made into pills, one pill a day. According to the current understanding of vitamin A and D poisoning, taking vitamin AD tablets above 10 every day for several months or taking a bottle of multivitamin preparation every day may cause poisoning.