After ingesting an unsuitable food supplement, bought by his parents, an infant suffered a vitamin D overdose and ended up in hospital in intensive care.
- It is recommended to give 400 to 800 IU of vitamin D per day to children from 0 to 24 months.
- An overdose of vitamin D can cause hypercalcemia, which is an excessive level of calcium in the blood.
Recently, Alicia and her husband, young parents, went to a chiropractor to get advice on vitamin D supplementation for children. As a reminder, the latter “is recommended in France from the first days of life in order to prevent rickets. This supplementation must be continued throughout the phase of growth and bone mineralization, that is to say until the age of 18”, can we read on the site of the National Food Safety Agency (Anses).
“10,000 IU” for a drop of Sunday Natural
The couple decided not to get ZymaD, because their six-month-old son was intolerant to this vitamin D drug which, in the maternity ward, caused him colic. On the advice of the health professional, they bought Sunday Natural, namely a food supplement, on the Internet. According to the daily The Parisian, Alicia and her companion did not know that this product was too dosed. On the label, it was well stipulated that the dosage of “10,000 IU” corresponded to a drop and not a milliliter, but this precision was written in German.
After receiving the overdosed food supplement, the parents administered it to their baby. After a few days, they found that their child had stopped gaining weight and was having difficulty getting onto his stomach. However, he remained smiling. Some time later, Alicia, her mother, had a bad feeling. “We said to ourselves, stop, something is wrong, we have to go to the emergency room”she told the daily.
“We almost killed our baby”
Once in the hospital, the doctors told the couple that their son suffered from a heart problem and nephrocalcinosis, namely the presence of calcium deposits in the parenchyma (functional tissue) of the kidney. Caregivers have suggested that an overdose of vitamin D was the cause of these disorders. They decided to place the child in intensive care and treat him for two weeks. Now their baby is doing better.
“If we put things coldly, we say to ourselves that we almost killed our baby. This prospect haunts me even more than it makes me feel guilty”, Alicia said. After this incident, the mother wants to warn young parents about the dangers of overdose. She advises them to be vigilant when supplementing their infants with vitamin D. “It’s my second child, my father is a doctor, we take care of everything. And we screwed up on a dietary supplement? If it happened to us, it can happen to anyone,” she added.
