year-old are very vulnerable to the effects of poor nutrition than old children and adults for a number of reasons. Newborn babies who are born before nine months have poor stores of fat and proteins. The less they weight, the less the calorie reserves and shorter the period the infant will withstand starvation. Very few people realize that the need for nourishment is greatest in the first year of life. It is because of rapid growth during this period. At 4 months of age 30% (almost 1/3rd) of the caloric intake of a baby is utilized for the growth. At the age of 1 year it falls to 5 % and by 3 years 2%. Weight gain at 1 year is three times the weight at birth. Body length increases by one and half times. An infant is at greatest risk of growth failure in the first 6 months of life than in late childhood. Because of low reserves and regular small defects have a cumulative effect as well as deficiency in weight and height. There are 100 billion nerve cells in a fully developed brain. Brain growth is rapid in the last 3 months of pregnancy and progress rapidly in the first 2 years of life. A developing brains' demand is great; this is a sensitive developmental process, affected adversely by insufficient nutrition and leads to poor neuro-developmental outcomes. Infant or child nutrition is influenced to a great extent by acute illnesses or surgery. The demand for energy is higher in recovery periods which may last for weeks. Therefore special attention has to be paid to children's nutrition in this period. How are children affected by early nutritional deficiency? The height of the child is affected by nutritional status. Mal-nutritional in mothers' womb is associated with increased coronary heart diseases, paralytic attacks, non-insulin dependent diabetes, hypertension and lung airway diseases. Overweight at birth and later also doubles the risk of heart disease and cerebro-vascular accidents that may lead to paralysis. An infant weighting 8kg at 1 year has 2/3rd less chance of developing coronary heart diseases then a child weight 12.2 kg at the age of 1 year. The overall advice to expectant mothers is to understand the importance of their babies' weight in the last trimester of pregnancy. Diabetic mothers should control their condition prior to getting pregnant in order to avoid overweight in infants, who have higher chances of morbidity and mortality. There should be a realization that early dietary needs of an infant should be met properly to avoid long term complications and ensure good neuro-development outcome. The writer is a pediatrician at My Care Medical Center, with an M.B., B.S Dch from (Dublin) Ireland. __
