INTRAVENOUS IRON THERAPY IN IRON-DEFICIENCY ANEMIA OF INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD

Abstract

IRON-DEFICIENCY in infancy than in later years when complications of bleeding, infection, or depressive chronic disease are more likely to enter into the pathogenesis. Also, iron-deficiency anemia occurs much more commonly in infancy and early childhood than is generally recognized. The rapid growth of the cellular tissues and the blood volume and the concomitant increase in the absolute mass of circulating hemoglobin tend to deplete the iron reserves unless a liberal intake of nutritional iron passes the intestinal barrier and is absorbed into the body. This is the basis for the aphorism that the infant bleeds into his own increasing blood volume.¹ Since a milk diet is almost devoid of iron, the infant must have a liberal intake from other sources, or else he must draw on storage iron for blood formation and thereby exhaust his reserve supply. About one-fourth of the total body iron is in myohemoglobin and