What should children eat when they have growing pains?

Children will experience growing pains at different stages during their growth process. Some babies often feel leg pain. When babies have this symptom, parents should not worry too much. This is a normal physiological phenomenon and parents need to pay attention to it. If the child is in the period of growing pains, try to maintain a balanced nutrition in the diet and eat more foods that promote bone development.

What should children eat when they have growing pains?

1. Foods high in calcium, such as: spare ribs, animal cartilage, fried fish, dried shrimp, kelp, seaweed, hair algae, black fungus, black sesame, walnuts, Chinese mustard, pakchoy, rapeseed, fennel, coriander, celery, tofu, etc.

2. Calcium-containing drinks and protein drinks, such as milk, soy milk, soy milk, tofu pudding, lotus seed soup, peanut milk, almond milk, etc., can also be drunk by children to provide bone growth for the baby.

3. Children with growing pains need to eat more vegetables and fruits rich in vitamin C, such as grapefruit, citrus, etc., and vegetables such as leeks, spinach, and green vegetables. These foods are not only rich in vitamin C, but also beneficial to collagen synthesis.

Chinese medicine treatment for children's growing pains

1. Kidney deficiency type: Children often complain of back pain, are listless all day, cannot stand for long, are easily tired, have a pale tongue and a weak pulse. The principle of treatment is to strengthen the spleen and kidney, and use prescriptions such as yam, cornus officinalis, eucommia ulmoides, deer antler, poria, moutan bark, and rehmannia glutinosa.

2. Blood deficiency type: Children often feel dizzy, pale, and have cold limbs. The treatment principle is to replenish qi and blood, and the prescriptions used include astragalus, ginseng, poria, white atractylodes, angelica, chuanxiong, peony, etc.

3. Spleen deficiency type: The child is thin, prone to nausea, abdominal distension, poor appetite, often unformed stool, thick white tongue coating, and weak pulse. The treatment principle is to tonify the spleen and stomach, and the prescriptions used include licorice, yam, codonopsis, platycodon, tangerine peel, lotus seeds, Shenqu, and Poria.

Causes of growing pains

First, children grow very fast in height during this period, and can grow 7-8 cm each year. Because bones grow rapidly, while the surrounding nerves, tendons, and muscles grow relatively slowly, pulling pain will occur.

Second, when infants begin to learn to walk, the tibia of their lower legs is more bent. In order to offset the misalignment of the lower support force line caused by the inward curvature of the tibia, the human body will compensate by causing a certain degree of knee valgus. As children grow up, most of them will gradually correct these two temporary deformities, tibial inward curvature and knee valgus, by relying on the strength of their leg muscles without causing any pain. However, in a small number of children, tibial inward curvature and knee valgus are not corrected in time. In order to maintain the stability of the joints, the leg muscles must always be kept tense, resulting in pain.

Third, children are very active during the day, and their muscles are prone to fatigue and pain over time. School-age children are innocent and tireless, and a large amount of activity will inevitably lead to the accumulation of acidic metabolic products such as lactic acid, which will also cause muscle soreness.

It is undeniable that some children will suffer from calcium deficiency during this period, but calcium supplementation is not very helpful in relieving growing pains. Because the cause of growing pains is not bones, but soft tissue fatigue. Moreover, calcium absorption for school-age children should mainly be obtained through food, such as milk, bone soup, green vegetables, shrimp, shellfish, etc. The effect of dietary supplements is far better than that of medicinal supplements. Children cannot absorb too much calcium preparations well.