Saturday, September 21, 2013

2-year-old gets weight-loss surgery: How young is too young

The two-year-old Saudi patient is seen here before bariatric surgery to reduce his weight.
When you hear the story of a 2-year-old boy believed to be  the youngest person in the world ever to have bariatic surgery, it's very easy to "point a judgemental finger," as one mom said to me.
"Wasn't there anything else the parents could do besides such a serious surgery at such a young age?" parents will ask. 
See more pix after the cut.....

The child after surgery

The boy, from Saudi Arabia, weighed 79 pounds by the age of 2, and suffered from severe sleep apnea which caused him to stop breathing while asleep
After two different attempts to control the boy's weight through dieting reportedly failed, doctors decided to perform what's called a laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy, which involves permanently removing 60 to 85% of the stomach and restricting food intake.
Dr. Jennifer Shu, a pediatrician in Atlanta, said such a procedure should be a last resort, and only after inpatient monitoring and dieting have been attempted and proven to be unsuccessful.
Without knowing the details of this particular case, she said that if doctors had not performed the surgery, the boy could have faced injuries from his bowed legs, heart disease and diabetes down the road and even death, from the lack of oxygen caused by the sleep apnea.
"I think what (the doctors) are trying to say is this kid may not live without the surgery or without reversing that weight gain," said Shu,  Well expert doctor 
Shu says the current recommendation is to wait until the child is  done growing or close to it, which is around 13 for girls and 15 for boys before considering bariatric surgery.
  I think the best answer is to avoid this kind of situation totally by feeding kids the right way ,giving them good food in good proportion to avoid been over weight....such a small boy going through such a surgery.

No comments:

Post a Comment