FLINT, Mich. — Quayana Towns’ 2-month-old daughter wriggled on an exam table last week as her pediatrician ticked off questions that have become essential for every parent of young children here.

“So what are you guys doing for water — what are you drinking?’’ asked the doctor, Mona Hanna-Attisha.

“I have a whole bunch of bottled water that I picked up,’’ said Towns, 26, assuring the doctor that the family had been drinking it for a few months, since the gravity of Flint’s water crisis came to light.

“And before that you were using tap water?’’

“Yes,’’ Towns replied, as her other child, a 1-year-old, King, toddled around.

Hanna-Attisha would waste no time adding King and his sister, Taeyana, to a new database of children under 6 who may have been exposed to lead in Flint’s water, a group she believes could number 8,000.

Of all the concerns raised by the contamination of Flint’s water supply, and the failure of the state and federal governments to promptly address the crisis after it began nearly two years ago, none is more chilling than the possibility that children in this tattered city may have suffered irreversible damage to developing brains and nervous systems from exposure to lead.

Residents and advocates have expressed outrage over the government’s failure to protect Flint’s children, something many of them say would not have happened if the city were largely white. Adding to their injury, they say, are the harsh conditions of poverty that have already placed ample obstacles in their young lives.

At the same time, many are turning their attention to the future, when the effects of consuming lead-laced water for months may be all too evident.

At the center of those efforts is Hanna-Attisha, whose research documenting a spike in children’s blood lead levels forced dismissive government officials to finally acknowledge the water crisis last fall. With her colleagues at Hurley Children’s Hospital, where she directs the pediatric residency program, she is at the forefront of the scramble to put in place the services and resources so that every child who needs extra help learning or overcoming medical problems will have support for years to come.

Decades of research have found that exposure to even low levels of lead can profoundly affect children’s growth, behavior, and intelligence over time. Studies have linked elevated lead levels in blood to learning disabilities, problems with attention and fine motor coordination, and even violent behavior.

Younger children and fetuses are especially vulnerable because of their developing brains and nervous systems, which is why the efforts here will focus on children 5 and younger.

E-mails released by the office of Governor Rick Snyder last week referred to a resident who said she was told by a state nurse in January 2015, regarding her son’s elevated blood lead level, “It is just a few IQ points. . . . It is not the end of the world.’’

Hanna-Attisha and others who have studied lead poisoning have a sharply different view of lead exposure, for which there is no cure.

“If you were going to put something in a population to keep them down for generations to come, it would be lead,’’ Hanna-Attisha said.

Underlying the problem are the troubling conditions prevalent among low-income children and their families in cities like Flint: spotty access to doctors and health care services; a dearth of healthy foods; living conditions so poor that many of the children may have already been exposed to lead poisoning from the paint in their homes; parents with limited time and financial resources.

The doctors here said they will focus on improving the ­diets of affected children and expanding education programs like Head Start, the federally funded preschool program for low-income children, which already has a waiting list in Flint. Hanna-Attisha has submitted dozens of recommendations to the governor, state legislators and federal officials.

It remains a wish list at this point, but she and others believe that with Flint’s public health crisis in the national spotlight, the city’s chances of getting help are better than ever before.

Snyder and the state Legislature have so far allocated $28 million in emergency state spending for Flint. Some of the money will provide initial services, like health assessments and home visits from nurses, to lead-exposed children. Snyder has also asked the federal government to expand Medicaid to cover every Flint resident younger than 21, regardless of income level. And Democrats in Congress said Thursday that they would seek $600 million in federal aid for Michigan to help Flint.