Failure to Thrive

My daughter is 2.5 years old and has always been below the lowest growth curve--she was listed as failure to thrive.  She is still tiny.  I have autoimmune thyroid disease--I really don't believe in Hashimoto's and Grave's as totally separate because I was diagnosed with both; the latter was diagnosed first.  I think they are ends of an autoimmune spectrum...anyway---my daughter is very small.

Should I have her thyroid antibodies tested?  I have not done it because I hate to put her through procedures that cause pain as I do not want her to be like my oldest child..oldest is terrified of doctors because of memories she has from when she was two.

**She nursed for 21 months.

[Deanna L Aftab Guy, MD]

I don't think her failure to thrive is solely due to thyroid disease but my concern is that perhaps you may have had thyrotoxicosis during pregnancy or if treated your antibodies could have passed via the placenta, but these infants usually have temporary(1-2 months at most) effect upon their thyroid causing it to be overactive. From your description it sounds unrelated. I agree that it may not be the first needed thing to do so bloodwork may not be needed but honestly failure to thrive is very important to assess and does not always involve alot of bloodwork so don't use this fear to keep you away from your pediatrician. Start there, get an excellent 3 day dietary history and consider involving a nutritionist with your pediatrician's help. Urine can be collected(with a bag) for simple tests and if ultimately needed a blood test may be done, celiac disease, cystic fibrosis, malabsorption or metabolic disorders are important but to make you feel better if she was born in the US she had a newborn screen for some very important diseases that are basically ruled out. Sometimes the prolonged nursing leads to a slower weight gain in some infants (and an overweight gain in others!!!) So work with your doc cause now she is just 9 months out from nursing and really is getting higher fat and dairy in larger quantities than before(the biggest source of calories in most toddlers).
Hope this helps

[shopsy]

A related discussion, Failure to Thrive in 1 year old was started.