This subject along with many others are quite common. We will do our best to answer this and many other similar questions in this article which should ease your mind regarding this subject.
What Is Vitamin C?
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a water-soluble nutrient that plays a critical role in a variety of your baby’s most vital physical functions. It’s essential for maintaining a healthy immune system, enhancing iron absorption, and producing collagen, the most abundant protein in the human body Antioxidants help protect cells from free radical damage Free radicals are highly volatile, cell-damaging chemicals that are a byproduct of normal human metabolism. Antioxidants like vitamin C can bind to free radicals, making them unable to harm surrounding tissues Therefore, it must be obtained from the foods they consume each day.
This nutrient can be found in breastmilk, infant formula, and many types of fruits and vegetables. Vitamin C requirements for infants Though essential throughout every stage of life, infants need less vitamin C than adults. It also functions as an antioxidant.
Babies require 40–50 mg of vitamin C per day, depending on their age.
Why Vitamin C Is Important
Vitamin C helps form and repair red blood cells, bones, and tissues. In addition, vitamin C helps cuts and wounds heal, boosts the immune system, and keeps infections at bay.
And it helps the body absorb iron from food sources.
How Much Vitamin C Does My Child Need?
Ages 1 to 3 years: 15 milligrams (mg) daily
Ages 4 to 8: 25 mg daily
This vitamin is available in so many foods that deficiencies are extremely rare. Children who are very picky eaters and don’t eat a lot of fruits and vegetables may not get enough vitamin C. Also, children exposed to secondhand smoke need more vitamin C to repair cell damage from cigarettes.
If you’re concerned that your child doesn’t get enough vitamin C, ask your child’s doctor whether you need to boost your child’s intake. Your child doesn’t have to get enough vitamin C every day. Estimate the nutrient content accordingly.
Vitamin C is water soluble, so any excess is flushed from the body in your child’s urine. However, megadoses can still cause nausea, diarrhea, kidney stones, and gastritis (inflammation of the stomach lining). Children ages 1 to 3 should not get more than 400 mg of vitamin C a day.
Children ages 4 to 8 should not get more than 650 mg a day.
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Pediatric gastroenterologist Kadakkal Radhakrishnan, MD, helps explain why this vitamin is so necessary. Advertising Policy Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center.
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How vitamin C helps your body
Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, is a vitamin found in many common foods like citrus fruits, apples, berries, potatoes and peppers.
It’s also readily available as a dietary supplement. Vitamin C is important so your body can form:
Collagen, blood vessels, cartilage and muscle. This helps to maintain many body tissues, including your skin.
It also aids with connective tissue repair and wound healing according to one study. Antioxidants help reduce damage to cells from free radicals in the body. Vitamin C is also highly concentrated in immune cells, which suggests that it’s an immune-boosting agent.
Your child’s growing body can’t produce vitamin C on its own. Plant sources, including tomatoes, peppers, broccoli and kiwi, are the best sources of vitamin C.
If your little one is a picky eater, vitamin C is also available as an oral supplement.
“There are a lot of different types of vitamin supplements available. It’s best to talk to your child’s pediatrician about which one is right for them,” says Dr. Radhakrishnan.