The same as for severe malnutrition every child coming to your health post should be checked for anaemia. Palmar pallor is a sign of anaemia, and this is to look for palmar pallor. Palmar pallor is unusual paleness of the skin of the palms.

The steps for this are described below.

To see if the child has palmar pallor, look at the skin of the child's palm.
Hold the child's palm open by grasping it gently from the side as illustrated in Figure 7.4. Do not stretch the fingers backwards. This may cause pallor by blocking the blood supply. Compare the colour of the child's palm with your palm or mother's palm. If the skin of the child's palm is pale but has some pink areas, the child has some palmar pallor. If the skin of the palm is very pale or so pale that it looks white, the child has severe palmar pallor.

Fig. 7.4. Checking for palmar pallor.

Last modified: Wednesday, 1 March 2017, 1:59 AM