Pediatrics Intro Flashcards
What can paediatric nutrition issues be divided into?
- Feeding issues/social environments (non-illness related)
- Illness related causing increased energy and nutrient needs
- All with or without inflammation
What are the key anthropometric measurements for peds?
- Weight, heigh or length
- Statistics using Z-score
- Reference growth charts
Paediatric nutrition issues include both illness and non-illness related malnutrition. What are the two types of illness etiologies?
- Acute (<3 months)
- Chronic (>/= 3 months
What may illness-related malnutrition lead to?
- Starvations
- Malabsorption
- Nutrient loss
- Hypermetabolism
What doe non-illness related malnutrition lead to?
-Starvation
What does starvation include?
-Anorexia, socio-economic, iatrogenic feeding interruption or intolerance
(T/F) Malabsorption, nutrient losses and hypermetabolism cause decreased food intake, leading to malnutrition
F
Will cause increased nutrient requirements, leading to malnutrition
What does inflammation lead to? (2)
- Hypermetabolism
- Altered utilization of nutrients
What does starvation lead to?
decreased intake lead to malnutrition
what are examples of outcomes of paediatric malnutrition?
- Loss of LBM
- Muscle weakness
- Developmental or intellectual delay
- Infections
- Immune dysfunction
- Delayed wound healing
- Prolonged hospital stays
What is the goal in paediatric malnutrition?
To achieve normal growth and development from infancy through adolescents to adulthood
What are 3 challenges in paediatric nutrition?
- Metabolic needs for rapid growth
- Low nutrient reserves
- macro and micronutrient needs mirrors the growth phase
BMR energy requirements?
40-62 kcal/kg/day
Thermogenic effect of feeding kcal requirements?
3-11 kcal/kg/day
Activity kcal requirements?
2-4 kcal/kg/day
Growth feeding requirement?
45-67 kcal/kg/day
Total kcal requirements?
90-130 kcal/kg/day
–> Rarely 144
What does 50% of the nutritional daily requirement go towards?
Roughly half towards BMR and half towards growth
What will first be compromised when nutrition is insufficient in the paediatric population why?
- Often in the NICU, nutrition will be given via fluid but fluid is restricted, thus nutrition is compromised
- The majority of nutrition provided will be shunted to the “necessary” BMR requirements, thus compromising nutrition for growth
What needs to be included in the nutritional assessment? (PLM-GNS-R)
- Prenatal history
- Labor, delivery and neonatal events
- Medical hx of child
- Growth hx
- Social hx
- Review of organ systems
Why is it important to review prenatal hx?
-Obtain general obstetrical history to understand if there were any markable events (i.e. pre-eclampsia) which could explain impact on the child or infant today
What should be reviewed in labor, delivery and neonatal events?
- Apgar scores
- Neonatal asphycia
- Prematurity
- SGA
- Birth weight/length
- Congenital malformations or infections
- Breastfeeding support
- Feeding difficulties
What is an apgar score?
10 vitals of the newborn are measured 1 minute, 5 minute and 10 minutes after birth. A lower score is more detrimental, and may predict poor outcomes such as feeding difficulties later on
What should be reviewed in nutrition history?
- Feeding behaviours
- Perceived sensitivities/allergies
- Quantitative food intake via food records or re-calls
What should be reviewed in social hx?
- Who feeds the child
- Environmental and social stressors
What should be included in the review of organ systems?
-Anorexia, dysphagia, stooling pattern and consistencies, vomiting, GERD, recurrent fevers, dysuria, urinary frequency, activity level
What is the fenton growth curve used for?
Pre-mature infants, less than 37 weeks
Can the fenton growth curve assess proportionality in pre-mature infants?
No, as there is no curve for the BMI
When can the WHO growth curve be used?
For normal term infants
–> The timeline of the WHO growth curve start at “Birth” suggesting that a normal term pregnancy was experienced
The WHO growth curve can NEVER be used for pre-mature baby (T/F)
F
The WHO growth curve ma be used if adjusted age is used
When a pre-mature baby reach 40 weeks, which growth curve is recommended? Why?
- Use the WHO growth curve (with corrected age) and the Fenton growth curve
- Allows for comparison between both the premature and the general populations
Why may the WHO be accurate?
They have pulled growth data from several countries with healthy, normal growth measurements
What is the cut-off to define a pre-mature baby?
Less that 37 weeks
- -> Full-term length is 40 weeks
- -> Even if they are 36.5, we will still use the Fenton curve
The WHO allows to track both height and weight, leading to proportionality. Why is this advantageous?
If we think we are trending well on weight, but the infant is stunted or not trending properly on length and we do not adjust our nutritional intervention, we could create an obese child.
What could impair the height if the weight growth is OK?
- Often if there are issues with bone growth
- There are also hormone issues, where no matter what the nutrition issue is, nothing will help
- Length is affected more on the chronic basis, we will usually see weight affected first, and then height
What is the most important thing to assess about growth curves?
The trends in the growth curves
–> The nutritional intervention should NOT be based on only one point on the graphg
What does the first WHO growth curve consider? Second?
- Infants from birth to 24 months
- Children 2 to 19 years
What does the first WHO growth chart for infants from birth to 24 month include?
-weight, height, weight for height and head circumference
What does the second growth chart for children aged 2-19 include?
Length for age, weight for age and BMI
Why is there a dotted line on the weight curve beginning at 10 years old?
During adolescence, peaks are at different time and therefore the weight is NOT the focus. The curve is “projections”
- Beginning at 10 years old we want to assess more on the BMI than the weight alone
- -> The solid line is based on population studies
- -> The dotted line is simply projections/estimates and is less important
Can WHO growth curves be used in hospitalized children?
Yes - although they are based on healthy populations. If there are certain conditions, use specialized growth charts
Examples of conditions requiring specialized growth charts?
- Prader-Willi syndrome
- Cornelia deLange syndrome
- Turner sundrome
- Trisomy 21 (Downs)
- Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome
- Marfan syndrome
- Achondroplasia
How does the growth of trisomy 21 differ from regular children?
During the first few months of life, there is a tendency to failure to thrive and are often smaller. However, over a couple years they have a propensity towards obesity, therefore we need to be careful that we are not following th e normal WHO curve, as per their population this would make them obese.
What are four key scenarios in which we should be worried about the childs weight?
- Plateauing
- Sharp declines
- Falling off the 50% ile
- Incline in BMI
Discuss plateauing
- When the weight was initially following the 50% percentile, and is crossing towards the 3rd over time
- The child is stopping growth
- This is more observed during chronic malnutrition
Discuss sharp decline
- The weight was initially on 50th percentile, an next measurement rapidly drops to the 3rd percentile
- This is more observed in acute trauma cases, where adequate nutrition was missed
Discuss falling the 50th percentile (or any percentile), what is the difference between plateauing?
- Weight was initially at the 50th percentile, but then drops off towards the 3rd percentile BUT the child is still growing (no plateau) but not growing to the velocity we want
- Likely chronic malnutrition, where the child isnt getting enough nutrition. We would likely need toadjust our nutrition intervention plan
Discuss incline in BMI
- It is always important to look at the proportionality of the child
- If we re seeing increases in BMI which sharply rises, it means that we are likely creating an obese child
Is there a strict definition of failure to thrive?
No, but there are more popular reference
What is the most accepted definition of failure to thrive?
1) Weight (or weight for height) is less than 2 standard deviations below the mean for sex and age
2) Weight curve has crossed more than 2 percentile lines after having previously achieved stable growth
(T/F) Infants at the 90th an 3rd percentile will always require adjustments to reach the 50th percentile
F
The goal is not necessarily at the 50th, but to allow the child to grow where they are supposed to grow. By looking at trends, we can understand the normal trajectory and then see if we need to adjust the nutritional intervention
(T/F) If a child crosses two percentile lines, they are off their trajectory and nutritional intervention is needed
F
Only when they have crossed MORE then 2 percentile lines after achieving stable growth is this a cause for concern
Discuss characteristic of constitutional delay of growth of adolescence
- Both height and weight are notably low at the third percentile, but are proportional
- Only in the teens, will they peak to follow the true potential for growth
- Often, we should ask if their parents experienced the same kind of delay
Discuss familial or genetic short stature
- Children that are small, no matter what we do
- Normal genetic potential, where our nutritional intervention will not change this
- They are proportional
Discuss primary nutritional deficiency in severe chronic illness
- The first thing that becomes affected in acute malnutrition is weight decreases, but overtime our length and head will continue to grow
- Once we are in chronic malnutrition, our length will be affected, and our body will always protect our brain first, therefore the head may be larger
- The weight deviate, the length is OK for awhile and then drops off
What other conditions or syndromes may have a growth curve similar to primary nutritional deficiencies, but will not respond to nutritional intervention?
- Congenital GH deficiency
- Untreated Turner Syndrome
What is another word for stunting?
-Nutritional dwarfism
What is the definition of stunting?
- 2 Dm below the height for age curves
- Not necessarily associated with emaciation, where short stature or poor growth may be the sole manifestations of nutritional inadequacy
What is the adaptive response to suboptimal nutrition in stunting?
Growth deceleration
___ is a good indicator of acute nutritional status
Weight