children s health issues
Hypothyroidism in Infants and Children
Symptoms
Symptoms of hypothyroidism differ depending on the age of the child. If iodine deficiency occurs very early during pregnancy, infants may have severe growth failure, abnormal facial features, intellectual disability, and stiff muscles that are difficult to move and control (called spasticity). Most other infants who have hypothyroidism initially have few if any symptoms because some thyroid hormone from the mother crosses the placenta. Once infants no longer receive thyroid hormone from the mother, symptoms develop slowly and the disease is detected only when they are screened as newborns. However, if hypothyroidism remains untreated, brain development slows and infants may have low muscle tone, hearing loss, a large tongue, poor feeding, and hoarse crying. Delayed diagnosis and treatment of severe hypothyroidism can lead to Intellectual Disability and Some symptoms in older children and adolescents are similar to Symptoms (such as weight gain; fatigue; constipation; coarse, dry hair; and coarse, dry, and thick skin). Symptoms that appear only in children include slowed growth, a delay in the development of the skeleton, and 