Vitamin B12 deficiency: A rare but treatable cause of abnormal movements in infants

Abstract

Vitamin B12 deficiency is a rare and treatable cause of failure to thrive and delayed development in infants. The deficiency usually occurs in infants who are exclusively breastfed, whose mothers have recognised pernicious anemia or are vegetarians, causing low stores of vitamin B12 in infant at birth and inadequate amounts of vitamins in the breast milk. A 13-month-old boy with vitamin B12 deficiency who also developed a movement disorder was presented in this paper. Only a small number of cases with similar neurohematological symptomatology have been described from developed countries. Response to treatment with vitamin B12 in these cases are often dramatic. Therefore vitamin B12 deficiency should be considered in the differential diagnosis of dyskinesia in children even of non-vegeterian families.