subject: Constipation In Children [print this page] Constipation is a symptom with many causesConstipation is a symptom with many causes. These causes are of two types: obstructed defecation and colonic slow transit (or hypo mobility). About 50% of patients evaluated for constipation at tertiary referral hospitals have obstructed defecation.[3] This type of constipation has mechanical and functional causes. Causes of colonic slow transit constipation include diet, hormonal disorders such as hypothyroidism, side effects of medications, and rarely heavy metal toxicity. Because constipation is a symptom, not a disease, effective treatment of constipation may require first determining the cause. Treatments include changes in dietary habits, laxatives, enemas, biofeedback, and in particular situations surgery may be required.
Children
Constipation in children usually occurs at three distinct points in time: after starting formula or processed foods (while an infant), during toilet training in toddlerhood, and soon after starting school (as in a kindergarten)
After birth, most infants pass 4-5 soft liquid bowel movements (BM) a day. Breast-fed infants usually tend to have more BM compared to formula-fed infants. Some breast-fed infants have a BM after each feed, whereas others have only one BM every 23 days. Infants who are breast-fed rarely develop constipation By the age of two years, a child will usually have 12 bowel movements per day and by four years of age, a child will have one bowel movement per day
Causes
The causes of constipation can be divided into congenital, primary, and secondary.[2] The most common cause is primary and not life threatening. In the elderly, causes include: insufficient dietary fiber intake, inadequate fluid intake, decreased physical activity, side effects of medications, hypothyroidism, and obstruction by colorectal cancer.
Constipation with no known organic cause, i.e. no medical explanation, exhibits gender differences in prevalence: females are more often affected than males.
Structural and functional abnormalities
Constipation has a number of structural (mechanical, morphological, anatomical) causes, including: spinal cord lesions, Parkinson, colon cancer, anal fissures, proctitis, and pelvic floor dysfunction.[12]
Constipation also has functional (neurological) causes, including anismus, descending perineum syndrome, and Hirschsprung's disease.[3] In infants, Hirschsprung's disease is the most common medical disorder associated with constipation. Animus occurs in a small minority of persons with chronic constipation or obstructed defecation.
A crash diet is a diet which is extreme in its nutritional deprivations, typically severely restricting calorie intake. It is meant to achieve rapid weight loss and may differ from outright starvation only slightly. It is not meant to last for long periods of time, at most a few weeks. Importantly, the term specifically implies a lack of concern for proper nutrition. Crash diets are also known as "fad diets" and are often seen as quick fix solutions.
Contrary to the belief of many who start this sort of diet, this form of dieting is neither healthy nor largely successful in achieving long term weight loss as it provokes a slowdown of the body's basal metabolic rate - the body seeks to conserve every calorie and so weight loss becomes increasingly difficult. While some initial weight is often lost, the weight is usually regained quickly in the weeks that follow, as the individual reverts to their original pre-crash diet.
It often becomes a vicious cycle in which the weight that is regained in often more than the starting weight, causing the dieter to revert back to the crash diet, lose weight, regain the weight, and so on and so forth.
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