The COVID-19 pandemic has kept a majority of children indoors for the last 18 months. With schools closed and little to no outdoor activity, paediatricians are seeing a worrying trend of children reporting symptoms of vitamin D deficiency, rise in obesity and lack of social skills.
“We are seeing older children with severe vitamin D deficiency. We recently saw a few adolescent girls with limb pain and gait disturbances of recent onset that was worrying parents. To our surprise, we found that vitamin D levels were extremely low. Children have been at home for the last one to one-and-a-half years. So, they have no exposure to sunlight,” said Janani Sankar, senior consultant, Kanchi Kamakoti CHILDS Trust Hospital.
Usually, vitamin D deficiency is uncommon in older children, she said, adding: “Children will have severe limb pain, difficulty in climbing stairs, squatting and bony deformities. Children need exposure to sunlight. They should go out and play in open areas. Though 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. is the best time for production of vitamin D in the skin, they can go out anytime to be exposed to sunlight. Parents being too paranoid about sending them out will not help.”
Lack of activity
Obesity in children was another side-effect of the pandemic.
“We are seeing a lot of children with an average weight gain of 10 kg. This is because children do not go out and play. Their routine has been affected due to their lockdown lifestyle. Children wake up at 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. and do not empty their bowels. This leads to habitual constipation and retaining urine in the bladder, making them prone to urinary infection,” she said.
Rema Chandramohan, professor of paediatrics, Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children, said as far as the physical health of children was concerned, they found less respiratory infections as there was no mingling with their age group. “Respiratory infections have come down significantly but due to less activity, obesity has become a problem,” she said.
The increase in screen time has unmasked eye problems, such as amblyopia, she said, adding, “This tends to be suppressed and managed and that is why we are suggesting eye check-ups for children. We are also seeing an increase in the number of foreign body ingestion as children are at home.”
Another worrying effect is the lack of social skills, Dr. Janani Sankar pointed out.
As Dr. Rema Chandramohan said several social factors were at play, with loss of family income due to the lockdown being one. “Children need to play, and in the absence of such exposure, they can throw temper tantrums. How long can you keep a child inside?” she said.
Psychiatrists pointed out that there was a definite increase in addiction to gadgets among children. Staying at home had impacted interpersonal skills and communication of children.
While doctors welcomed the State government’s move to reopen schools for students from November, they stressed on the need for COVID-19 appropriate behaviour, including wearing masks, maintaining physical distancing and hand washing, as well as precautionary measures in light of dengue.
