Question
My baby is now seven months old, eats one egg a day, a little milk in the morning, noon, and evening, and the rest of the time eats complementary foods, but still won’t grow. Why is that? Am I malnourished? Others say it’s due to poor nutrient absorption. Can my baby take probiotics?
Answer
Probiotics can help improve gastrointestinal absorption, but they seem to have little to do with malnutrition. The reason for malnutrition may be due to factors such as calcium deficiency. Pediatric malnutrition is a chronic condition of nutritional deficiency caused by insufficient calories and/or protein, commonly seen in infancy. With the improvement of people’s living standards, the incidence of malnutrition has significantly decreased. Most cases of malnutrition observed currently are due to inappropriate feeding methods during infancy or disease factors, and the severity is usually mild. Causes of pediatric malnutrition include (1) inappropriate feeding, long-term insufficient intake, such as insufficient breast milk and failure to introduce complementary foods early; artificial feeding where the quality and quantity of food do not meet the needs, such as over-dilution of milk or feeding only starch-based foods; sudden weaning where the baby cannot adapt to new foods, etc.