Diarrhea in autumn and winter Clinical features Diarrhea in autumn and winter, also known as autumn diarrhea, is the most common type of diarrhea in infants and children. Fall diarrhea is most common in infants and children under the age of 1 year, and can affect children under the age of 5. Adults can also be infected with rotavirus, but are largely asymptomatic, meaning that they are often the hidden transmitters of the virus, not getting sick themselves, but easily transmitting it to children. Although autumn diarrhea is called “fall diarrhea”, it does not mean that it only occurs in autumn, but it can also occur in other seasons. The earliest symptom is fever, with or without fever in some cases, followed by vomiting and then diarrhea, with egg-flake soup-like or watery stools. And the number of times a day varies from baby to baby, with some pooping five or six times, and some a dozen times. Mood quickly deteriorates. The symptoms of dehydration soon appear. For breastfed babies, it is normal for them to have five or six bowel movements per day. Therefore, you should not judge whether your baby has diarrhea only by the number of bowel movements, but also by the shape of your baby’s stools and other symptoms. If you can’t tell for yourself, collect the stool and go to the hospital to have the doctor test it to see if there is rotavirus in the stool. Oral rehydration salts are the preferred treatment for mild to moderate dehydration in babies. For babies with mild to moderate dehydration, the preferred treatment is rehydration, and the preferred form of rehydration is oral rehydration salts. The signs of mild to moderate dehydration include dry mouth, dry and cracked lips, less urine, or dark yellow urine, poor skin elasticity, less tears when crying, etc. How to feed oral rehydration salts to my baby? When feeding your child oral rehydration salts, follow the principle of small amounts, preferably every 2-3 minutes, 10-20 ml each time. This will give your child 150 – 300 ml of fluid every hour and will correct his dehydration in about 3 – 4 hours. By giving your baby oral rehydration salts, you can prevent your baby from becoming dehydrated and from being sent to the hospital for fluids due to severe dehydration. However, if your baby has diarrhea with symptoms such as severe vomiting, absence of urine, bloating or increased dehydration, he should be taken to the hospital immediately and given fluids and rehydration. Babies should continue their original diet during diarrhea, but do not eat new foods or raw or cold foods, and do not force them to eat. For example, avoid giving them meat, juices and other foods high in fat, salt or sugar, which, can aggravate the symptoms that cause intestinal indigestion in babies. So what kind of food should you choose for them? A small amount of vegetables and more foods such as porridge. At this stage, you can switch the formula to lactose-free formula for a while to protect the intestines, and then slowly switch back to the original formula when the diarrhea symptoms disappear.