BERLIN, Germany (Reuters Health) Sept 09 - The number of preschool children in Berlin who receive some form of developmental therapy has been doubled by poverty, poor education and unchallenging daycare, according to German paediatricians.

The "medicalisation" of developmental problems is unfair to the health service as well as to the children concerned, said Dr. Ulrich Fegeler spokesman for the Berlin Association of Child and Youth Medicine in Germany.

In large German cities and across Europe, you would usually expect between 10% and 12% of children up to the age of 6 years to need therapy to develop or enhance motor skills, speech skills or cognitive factors, Dr. Fegeler told Reuters Health.

"But we are seeing up to 30% of children in Berlin undergoing these therapies; and developmental difficulties that need to be treated are on the rise," he continued. "This means up to 20% of the city's children are being treated for developmental problems, which could have been avoided."

He said the effects of modern poverty and poor education are clearly seen in children who sit in front of the television and who are given junk food, instead of being mentally, emotionally and physically stimulated by their families.

One of the main reasons such children end up in doctors' surgeries, he suggested, is that the safety net of state childcare, which has previously saved many children, is no longer capable of catching many of them.

"It is certain the pedagogic competence in families is not as good as it used to be," he said. "We are living in different times and we have to adapt to the patchwork family rather than two parents living together with their children. But there is too much television being used as a substitute."

"The state kindergartens must be improved--if the families are getting worse, the childcare institutions have to step in," he said. But when childcare institutions have to deal with groups of up to 35 small children, many of whom do not have German as a first language, little teaching can be done.

Dr. Fegeler estimates that in Berlin alone there are 50,000 children who need and receive therapy for developmental problems that stem from poverty, poorly educated families and other social problems.

Concern about the problems of the German capital's youngest inhabitants have been deepening over the last few months following education budget cuts and the release of obesity figures showing that one in three Turkish children, and one in eight German children in Berlin are seriously overweight.

"If now nearly every third child under school age has to undergo a kind of therapy, something is wrong with the large preschool education system," Dr. Fegeler said. "But the children are being sent to doctors. Medicine is a poor crutch, a very bad substitute for a more stimulating and healthy childhood."