Venkateshwar V, Raghu Raman T S
Graded Specialist (Paediatrics), 7 Air Force Hospital, Kanpur 208 004.
Senior Adviser, Department of Paediatrics, Command Hospital (Air Force), Bangalore 560 007.
Med J Armed Forces India. 2000 Jul;56(3):219-224. doi: 10.1016/S0377-1237(17)30171-5. Epub 2017 Jun 10.
Failure to thrive is a commonly encountered problem in Paediatric practice. This essentially generic term refers to children whose attained weight or rate of weight gain is significantly below that of other children of similar age and same sex. Several defining criteria have been proposed and help to differentiate true failure to thrive from other conditions causing apparent growth failure. There are numerous organic causes of failure to thrive, but non-organic failure to thrive is also an important entity and is caused by social, psychological and environmental factors. The clinical features are those of malnutrition, signs of underlying organic cause and specific manifestations of environmental/psychosocial deprivation. Indiscriminate laboratory investigations are usually non-contributory and have no role in evaluation. Management requires a multidisciplinary approach and hospitalization has a specific role. Although nutritional rehabilitation is the cornerstone of therapy, treatment of underlying factors-medical, psychological, social and environmental-should receive equally important attention. Long term physical, developmental and behavioural sequelae are known to occur in children with failure to thrive.
发育迟缓是儿科临床中常见的问题。这个基本通用的术语指的是体重或体重增长速度明显低于同龄同性别的其他儿童的孩子。已经提出了几个定义标准，有助于区分真正的发育迟缓与其他导致明显生长发育不良的情况。发育迟缓有许多器质性原因，但非器质性发育迟缓也是一个重要类型，由社会、心理和环境因素引起。临床特征包括营养不良、潜在器质性病因的体征以及环境/心理社会剥夺的特定表现。不加选择地进行实验室检查通常并无助益，在评估中也没有作用。管理需要多学科方法，住院治疗有特定作用。虽然营养康复是治疗的基石，但对潜在因素——医学、心理、社会和环境因素——的治疗应得到同等重要的关注。已知发育迟缓的儿童会出现长期的身体、发育和行为后遗症。
