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Revista de la Facultad de Medicina
Print version ISSN 0120-0011
Abstract
GIRALDO-LORA, Sandra Carolina and VELASCO-BENITEZ, Carlos Alberto. Dietary fibre consumption by infants under 2 years old and functional constipation. rev.fac.med. [online]. 2014, vol.62, suppl.1, pp.35-40. ISSN 0120-0011. https://doi.org/10.15446/revfacmed.v62n3sup.40872.
Background. Including dietary fibre (DF) brings many benefits for human health; however, there are large gaps in knowledge/opinion concerning the relationship between fibre and constipation in paediatrics. Objective. Describing the bowel habits of infants <2 years of age and their fibre intake. Materials and methods. This was a descriptive observational study involving 3-24 month old infants having an acute diagnosis involving compromise of the respiratory, gastrointestinal, nervous, cutaneous, hematologic, genitourinary, osteoarticular and cardiac systems without exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) who visited a third-level teaching hospital's outpatient department over a six-month period. This study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee. A nutritional survey involved 24-hour dietary recall before becoming ill. Infants were divided according to bowel habit into those with functional constipation (FC) and those without FC and by age group into < and > infants. Special consideration was given to breast-feeding, the start time of supplementary feeding and mother or caregiver having a history of FC. The results were expressed as mean ± standard deviation. The X2 test was used for statistical analysis. Results. 125 13±7 month old infants participated in the study; 86 were male. There were no statistically significant differences regarding age, gender, consumption of grams of fibre/d or breastfeeding, starting time for supplementary feeding and/or the mother or caregiver having a background of functional constipation (FC). Conclusions. No statistically significant differences were found between bowel habits and grams of fibre consumed, or breastfeeding, complementary feeding starting early and/or the mother or caretaker having a clinical background including FC.
Keywords : Dietary Fiber; Constipation; Infant.