Failure to thrive and metabolic alkalosis. Adverse effects of a chloride-deficient formula in two infants.

This report concerns two infants with failure to thrive and hypochloremic metabolic alkalosis. Both infants were fed exclusively with a soybean-based formula, which, as a result of a manufacturing error, was severely deficient in chloride. When an alternative formula containing an adequate amount of chloride was prescribed, the electrolyte abnormality was corrected, and the infants resumed their normal weight gain.