Suggest Ways To Gain Weight In A Child With Constipation

Posted on Wed, 3 Aug 2016

Question: My daughter is 5yrs old now. She is a premature baby and her weight 750gram at birth. First 2yrs she is growing well and her weight is considerably well. After 3.5 to 4 years she is not gaining properly. Nowadays the problem is she is completely denying food, we force her to take food. The major problem is she takes food and kept in mouth for long time and swallowed when we put pressure on her with different ways. It's seems a big problem to us how we help her to take food properly and growing properly. Currently she is only 10kg. Another important thing is, she has phobia at her bowel system. That makes a huge constipation. We visited doctors several time, they prescribed Laxopeg. We have noticed that after 2-3 days she make normal stool its not too hard at all but she has a deep phobia with that. We are failed to make her realize that there was nothing with bowel system. But she cries a lot at that time. We also checked to doctors for fishers or anything is there or not but doctors said there is nothing its only phobia. What we will do please suggest.

Answered by Dr. Dr. Pradeep Kumar Jain (56 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
continue trying for feeds

Detailed Answer:
Hello

I have gone through the details and do understand your concern.
In premature babies particularly whose birth weight was less than 1 kg,it is really difficult to achieve a normal growth pattern.These children lag their peers in growth chart,but usually achieve a normal growth till adolescence.
Children of this age are very choosy regarding their food and usually prefer to play rather than feed.This creates more worry for the parents.
I would suggest you to encourage her for feed and not to force.Give her what she likes.
Encourage for high fibre,high caloric feeds.
Constipation also is a very common problem in this age particularly of the child is not toilet trained properly.
You may give laxative like laxopeg which has very little side effect.
I agree with your doctors as if all the abnormalities have been ruled out,constipation is most likely psychological in origin.
The main management in this condition is behavioral therapy and encuragement of healthy nutritious food.You may also take help of pediatric psychologist.

Regards

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Nagamani Ng

Follow up: Dr. Dr. Pradeep Kumar Jain (26 hours later)

Thanks for your response.

I need to know what are the food items which we can choose for her which helps to gain her quickly.

Do we need to try anything supplementary health drink etc. or we only focus on regular home food.

Another concern is if Laxopeg has some side effect, did we try anything else or how to stop using this.

Answered by Dr. Dr. Pradeep Kumar Jain (8 hours later)

Brief Answer:
You may give supplementary health drink,laxopeg has minimal side effect

Detailed Answer:
Thanks for follow up

You may give health supplementary formulas like pediasure to meet the nutritional demand of the child.
It's good to give home food,but choose high caloric food.You may make the food caloric dense by adding butter or ghee.Give full cream milk and that can be condensed with dry fruit paste or pediasure.Give frequent small frequent meals.The diet should contain enough green vegetable and fruits as they are rich source of antioxidant and vitamins.
Laxopeg contains polyethylene glycol which is a new generation laxative with little side effect.If given intermittently side effects are rare.

With these measures I hope the growth will improve.

With regards

Note: For further queries related to your child health, Talk to a Pediatrician. Click here to Book a Consultation.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar