As nutrition has improved over the years, baby rickets was thought to be a thing of the past. Unfortunately, even armed with the knowledge that babies and toddlers need certain amounts of vitamins and nutrients, some elemental formulas have failed to provide what babies need.

What is Baby Rickets?

Rickets is a bone deformity that can result in a child’s bones hurting and breaking easily. The bones are soft instead of strong.

How Does a Child Get Rickets?

Rickets is not an infectious disease, meaning a child with rickets is not contagious to other children. Rickets can be inherited, but often is caused by nutritional deficiencies of calcium, vitamin D or phosphorus.

Our bodies need sunlight to make vitamin D, and a lack of sunlight can contribute to the development of rickets.

What are the Signs of a Child with Rickets?

Babies suffering from rickets have soft skulls and may be irritable. The baby’s limbs may appear to be floppy, break easily or exhibit uncontrolled muscle spasms. The baby’s breast bone may appear to protrude.

Toddlers often become bow-legged or knock-kneed. Due to suppressed bone growth, many toddlers with rickets will appear small for their age, weigh less than average and complain of bone pain.

Why Would My Baby Develop Rickets?

Again, this is due to a vitamin D deficiency, which is synthesized in skin cells when they are exposed to sunlight. Baby rickets is a greater risk for children of African, Middle Eastern and Asian descent because their darker skin requires greater exposure to sunlight in order to absorb a sufficient amount. Infants born prematurely may also be at risk for baby rickets because the fetus accumulates a store of vitamin D from the mother while in the womb. Breastfeeding exclusively for longer than six months may play a part as well.

For these reasons, obstetricians and pediatricians recommend that expectant and nursing mothers take daily vitamin D supplements (at least 10 mg) during the fall and winter months. If possible, infants and toddlers who are weaned (one to four years of age) should receive a similar daily dose.

Are There Food Sources of Vitamin D?

Indeed there are. Oily fish such as salmon as well as eggs and dairy foods are good sources of vitamin D as well as fortified cereal grains. However, if for some reason a child’s digestive system is unable to tolerate or process such foods, it is necessary to feed him or her special formulas. This is one reason that parents of such children have turned to products such as Neocate. Unfortunately, the manufacturers of Neocate overlooked a few things when they formulated their products. The result has been an abnormally high rate of rickets in children who have been fed Neocate.

What is the Connection Between Rickets and Neocate?

Some babies with food allergies or digestive problems are placed on an elemental formula called Neocate, which is made by Nutricia. Neocate is marketed as a hypoallergenic formula for babies and toddlers who can benefit from the proteins already being broken down into amino acid form.

Although Nutricia advertises Neocate as “nutritionally complete,” researchers have deemed the phosphate in the formula to lack bioavailability, which means the body cannot absorb it properly.

A team of Yale University and the Mayo clinic researchers found that of 51 babies and toddlers who had been fed primarily Neocate, 94 percent developed rickets, suffered broken bones or lacked adequate phosphate in their bodies.

What Nutricia Products May Cause Rickets?

Baby rickets has been linked to a diet primarily consisting of Nutricia’s Neocate line, which includes:

• Neocate Syneo Infant
• Neocate Infant DHA/ARA
• Neocate Nutra
• Neocate Junior
• Neocate Junior with Probiotics
• Neocate Splash
• Why Does Phosphorus Matter?

According to Dr. Susan E. Brown, researcher and author of the website Better Bones, “phosphorus combines with calcium to form a mineral crystal that gives strength and structure to our bones and teeth.”

A full 80 percent of the phosphorus in our bodies is found in the teeth and bones in a form known as hydroxyapatite, which is a type of crystalline bone.

Also, almost every biochemical reaction in the body relies upon phosphorus. Things we don’t consciously think about, but must happen to keep us alive, such as hormone regulation, cell growth, heart muscle contraction and the metabolism of fats and starches all need phosphorus to complete these tasks properly.

In 2002, doctors discovered the importance of phosphorus, particularly for bone development.