{"id":8636,"date":"2021-11-29T16:50:02","date_gmt":"2021-11-29T08:50:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.primecare.com.hk\/?post_type=parenting_info&p=8636"},"modified":"2021-11-29T16:50:25","modified_gmt":"2021-11-29T08:50:25","slug":"%e5%ac%b0%e5%85%92%e7%94%9f%e9%95%b7%e6%83%85%e6%b3%81-%e5%a6%82%e4%bd%95%e6%89%8d%e7%ae%97%e6%ad%a3%e5%b8%b8","status":"publish","type":"parenting_info","link":"https:\/\/www.primecare.com.hk\/en\/parenting_info\/%e5%ac%b0%e5%85%92%e7%94%9f%e9%95%b7%e6%83%85%e6%b3%81-%e5%a6%82%e4%bd%95%e6%89%8d%e7%ae%97%e6%ad%a3%e5%b8%b8","title":{"rendered":"How to tell if a baby's growth is normal?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A small number of newborn babies (around 1 in 4,000) may suffer from a condition known as \"inborn errors of metabolism\". Metabolic diseases are caused by faulty genes which result in a lack of a particular enzyme, thereby hindering metabolism. The effects include a lack of essential substances for the body or the accumulation of toxic substances. If these diseases are not treated early, they can lead to serious consequences, including developmental problems during growth, learning difficulties, intellectual disability, and in severe cases, permanent physical disability or even death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A simple screening within seven days of a baby's birth allows parents to detect the risk of potentially fatal inherited diseases early and begin appropriate treatment. Although metabolic diseases are not common, every baby runs the risk of developing one. Therefore, we recommend that all newborn babies undergo screening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the present era, metabolic disease screening methods are mainly divided into two types: blood or urine screening. The difference between the two lies in the number of metabolic diseases detected and their invasiveness. Blood screening detects about 30 metabolic diseases, including amino acid disorders, fatty acid oxidation disorders, and organic acid disorders. However, metabolic diseases are numerous, and not all are included in the screening. The method is simple: a few drops of blood are collected from a heel prick on the baby's foot onto filter paper for testing. Generally, infants need to have been feeding for at least 1 day and blood should be drawn between birth and 7 days old. The results can be known in just a few days. Urine screening, on the other hand, uses different screening methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The screening process for metabolic diseases is very simple. A few drops of blood are collected from the infant's heel by professional medical staff, and the test results can be obtained a few days later. Blood tests must be performed within 7 days of birth \u2013 between 1 day after feeding and within 7 days after birth (the optimal period is between 48 and 72 hours after birth) for an accurate diagnosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The vast majority of infants (98\u201399%) have normal blood screening results,which indicates that the risk of the infant having a metabolic disorder is very low. If an infant\u2019s blood screening result is positive, this indicates a high risk of a metabolic disorder, and the infant should be referred immediately to paediatrics for clinical assessment, followed by further diagnostic tests and treatment.In a small number of cases (approximately 1%), we are unable to determine the results of the sample analysis and need to contact the parents to arrange for a new blood sample to be taken from the infant for re-screening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blood screening is highly accurate, but as with any laboratory screening technique, in very rare circumstances, results may be \"false negative\" or \"false positive.\" Therefore, for all abnormal screening results, diagnostic testing is required to determine whether the infant actually has a metabolic disorder.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":8638,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"categories":[40],"class_list":["post-8636","parenting_info","type-parenting_info","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-parenting-info"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.primecare.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/parenting_info\/8636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.primecare.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/parenting_info"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.primecare.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/parenting_info"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.primecare.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/parenting_info\/8636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.primecare.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.primecare.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.primecare.com.hk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}