Hi, this is Tom, and in this episode, I'm going to be going through iron deficiency anemia

in children. Then you can find notes at zero to finals.com and in the zero to finals pediatrics book,

and you can find flashcards and questions at members.0.0.5.com.

So let's jump straight in.

Iron is an essential component of hemoglobin.

Iron deficiency leads to anemia, which is a low hemoglobin concentration.

Iron deficiency causes microticpochromic anemia.

Micrositic refers to small red blood cells with a low mean corpuscular volume or MCV.

Hypochromic refers to pale red blood cells due to a reduced hemoglobin concentration.

The groups at highest risk of iron deficiency anemia are premature and low birth weight infants,

children aged 6 to 24 months, toddlers with selective eating,

adolescents during growth spurts, and adolescent girls due to menstruation.

Let's go through the causes.

Several scenarios can lead to iron deficiency in children. These include insufficient

dietary iron, for example fussy toddlers, excessive cow's milk intake, which we'll talk about

in more detail shortly, increased iron requirements during rapid growth phases, reduced iron absorption, for example, in

celiac disease, and loss of iron through bleeding, for example menstruation in adolescent girls.

Dietary insufficiency is the most common cause in children.

During growth, iron requirements often exceed the dietary intake.

Excessive cow's milk intake can cause iron deficiency by several mechanisms.

Cow's milk is low in iron.

The calcium and the casein in the cow's milk inhibit iron absorption,

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