Anemic!

[cilantromapuche]

Abe went in for his 9 mos. checkup (18lbs.) and is anemic! It makes me feel like the worst mother in the world. To boot I am thinking of weaning because he keeps biting my nipples! ouch!
So now I am giving him the iron drops which he hates and makes him constipated.
Of course, since I came home I seem to read everywhere that anemic children suffer emotionally, developmentally, and physically from lack of iron.
chris

[Judegirl]

Hi, Chris. I'm sorry to hear about your son's anemia...though don't blame yourself for it! Were you looking for more information about the impact of anemia on babies? Or perhaps the cause?

Btw...have you thought about pumping, rather than weaning him from breast milk altogether? You might find it less painful than his biting.

Jude

[houseof3boys]

Chris don't let it get you down. You are not a bad mommy! It is pretty common for the iron levels to be somewhat low.

Start feeding him high iron foods like kale, spinach, beans, quinoa, tofu, prune juice, enriched oatmeal cereal (or whatever kind you use, but you mentioned constipation so I wouldn't recommend rice). Add something with Vitamin C to help the iron absorption and cook his goods in a cast iron pan/pot to up the iron content too. We give Ryan the Gerber brand vanilla squares that dissolve easily for a snack since they have decent iron in them. They aren't the healthiest things in the world, but they have a lot of vitamins and minerals in them and I don't worry about him choking on them at all.

Don't worry about it Chris just start to feed Abe more iron rich foods! You're a great mommy. :)

[jd11365]

I had the same post just 2 months ago... Though Kayla wasn't anemic, her levels were on the lower end of normal and I felt like the worst mother in the world. I was really devastated...it took the wind out of my mommy sails. I will say though that I got tremendous support from these boards and they really helped me through a crummy day. Here is what I did... I switched to Beechnut infant cereal which has almost double the iron as Earth's Best, and started paying attention to iron percentages on baby food. I only used organic foods or made my own, but I found that some commercial foods had zero iron in them...which I avoided. I also added the iron drops every third day and fed her lots of bananna and pears for snacks to improve the constipation issue.

Keep your chin up mama!

Jamie
Mommy to Kayla
5-1-03