The hot spring and summer months are the highest incidence of gastrointestinal diseases in infants and children. According to statistics, the incidence of pediatric diarrhea is the second highest after respiratory diseases. It is often accompanied by vomiting, fever, bloating and irritability, which seriously affects the baby’s health and requires timely treatment. Since most babies with diarrhea can be treated at home, it is especially important for parents to know about the prevention and treatment of summer diarrhea.
Why are children prone to diarrhea during spring and summer?
In fact, diarrheal diseases are more prevalent in summer in both adults and children, but the onset is more pronounced in children. In addition, in the hot season, children do not sleep well, which can affect the gastrointestinal tract to fully digest and absorb food, resulting in a higher incidence of diarrhea in the summer.
Diarrhea in children is divided into infectious and non-infectious
Diarrheal diseases can be divided into infectious and non-infectious. Infectious factors include pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, parasites, and molds. Bacterial diarrhea is generally predominant in summer. This is because of the high temperature, which favors the growth of bacteria. Some studies have shown that in our country, diarrhea caused by dysentery bacilli and pathogenic E. coli is more frequent. Viral diarrhea, on the other hand, is dominated by enterovirus and norovirus. Non-infectious diarrhea is dominated by allergic factors and indigestion. Other diarrhea is caused by infections in other systems of the body, such as respiratory tract infections and urinary tract infections, which often cause diarrhea in children, especially small infants.
Diagnosis of diarrhea in children depends on stool characteristics and frequency
Diarrhea can be judged in two ways: the nature of the stool and the number of stools. If your baby’s stool is watery or thin, and if the number of stools is more than 2-3 times higher than usual, you can make a preliminary diagnosis of diarrhea. These two aspects are still mainly based on the nature of the stool. If the baby poops 3-4 times a day, but each time it is formed, we do not consider it diarrhea.
The following diarrhea situations require taking the child to the hospital.
I. The baby is severely dehydrated and definitely needs immediate medical attention.
Second, if the baby is dehydrated, but can still correct the dehydration by himself through oral rehydration, we can first observe it at home, and if there is a change in the situation, such as an increase in the number of diarrhea, or an increase in the amount, it is also necessary to seek medical attention.
Third, the baby can not carry out the regular diet, appetite is very poor, not enough nutrition, may appear hypoglycemia.
Four, the baby appears frequent vomiting, can not be treated by oral rehydration.
Fifth, the baby appears obvious thirst and cannot be corrected.
Six, once the baby has a fever, he or she should go to the hospital for a checkup to find out the cause of the fever.
Seven, babies with blood in the stool also need urgent medical attention. We know that there are many causes of blood in the stool. If it is acute, in addition to considering infections, such as dysentery bacilli, parasites, salmonella, etc., it should also be identified with some common pediatric surgical diseases, such as intussusception, bleeding from Merkel’s diverticulum, etc.
How to determine the dehydration of a child with diarrhea?
We can determine the degree of dehydration by observing the general condition of the child, looking at the degree of sunken eye sockets, the amount of tears, whether the mucous membrane of the mouth and tongue is moist, and whether there is thirst, etc.
In the first case, if the baby’s eye sockets are not sunken, there are more tears, the mouth is moist and the drinking is normal, it means that there is no obvious dehydration yet. In addition, if the baby’s skin is very elastic, we can observe it ourselves at home.
In the second case, the baby is more irritable and noisy, with slight sunken eye sockets, fewer tears than usual, and very dry mucous membranes of the mouth and lips, with signs of thirst, when if we feel his skin elasticity, it will be poorer. This situation indicates that the child has some dehydration, depending on the child’s specific situation to give him treatment. If he is able to drink water and does not vomit, we can give him rehydration at home. If he can’t drink water and vomits frequently, or if the diarrhea doesn’t improve or even worsen after two or three days of observation at home, or if new symptoms (such as fever, blood in the stool, etc.) appear, we should promptly seek medical attention.
The third situation is that the baby’s dehydration has been very serious, appearing drowsiness, coma, obvious sunken eyes, eyes can not be closed when sleeping, no tears, abnormal dryness of the mucous membrane of the mouth and tongue, poor skin elasticity, etc.. At this time he basically has no desire to drink water, we call it shock early, the condition belongs to the more critical, must go to the hospital to rescue.