What It’s Like To Learn Your Baby Has “Failure To Thrive”

Is There Really Something Wrong?

A referral to a pediatrician in our case ruled out any underlying medical conditions and there were no issues with her ability to absorb nutrients. We had the best-case scenario: she’s just a little kid. Healthy, but small. I’m 155 centimetres and my mother and grandmother were short too. She’s inherited our lack of height! Babies who are overnourished in utero can be born bigger, like she was, and they then deviate downward from the growth curve.

But it took months of agonising over every single thing that went into her mouth and feeling so much overwhelming guilt along the way to finally get that diagnosis. And we are lucky there was no serious underlying condition affecting her health.

Slowly but surely she grew, little by little, but was always towards the bottom percentile. But she was showing the upward trend, which was the important thing. At age 8, now she is still one of the smallest in her class, but is healthy and active.

“Failure to thrive” can be a serious issue if it is allowed to continue for a prolonged period of time. If there is a feeding problem, it is important to identify it as soon as possible. This might be that the baby doesn’t have a good attachment if being breastfed, or there isn’t enough milk being produced to meet the baby’s needs.

Medical issues that can cause it can include the baby having an infection passed on from the mother during pregnancy, hormonal difficulties, allergies or digestive problems. There are also diseases such as cystic fibrosis, diabetes and heart disease that can delay or interfere with growth.

Most issues around “failure to thrive” can be treated at home, like we did for my daughter. In severe cases, however, tube feeding may be necessary and possibly even hospitalisation to treat malnutrition.

If you are worried that your child doesn’t seem to be gaining weight and growing, you should discuss the issue with your doctor or maternal child health nurse.