Babies and Children’s Diarrhea Danger - Treatment Help

Diarrhea in babies and small children can be dangerous and can be life-threatening. Infants are easily dehydrated and what’s making it hard is they don’t have the ability to tell you exactly how they feel. So to help you treat cases of acute diarrhea in infants and young children, check out some Doctor recommendations.

Reach for the right stuff

Water and fruit juice really aren’t the best fluids for rehydrating a baby. Rehydration solutions are good for infants and toddlers during the acute phase of diarrhea. You can make your own rehydration solution (add 1 teaspoon of sugar and a pinch of salt to a quart of water). However, if you make a mistake on this, you will overload the baby with salt. You can buy the commercially available ones (Pedialyte, ReSol, Lytren, etc.) to be sure. These rehydration liquids are available at drugstores without prescription.

Continue Feeding

Continue to feed the child. Avoid milk for a day if the diarrhea is severe. What you feed the child depends on the age of the child, but for infants the doctors recommend rice cereal, apple sauce, and bananas for a day or two. These foods tend to be a but binding. For older children, stick with plain dry toast, plain crackers, chicken without the skin and other bland foods.

Know When To Quit

The biggest mistake most people make is in not knowing when to quit treatment. Children may have loose stools for quite a while after the initial illness — perhaps one of two watery stools a day for the next couple of weeks. If they are otherwise okay, it’s not necessary to keep them on a restricted diet. Only do that for a couple of days.

Try the Carrot Cure

Some people think strained carrots are the greatest thing in the world for a child with diarrhea. You can include these in the diet if you wish as carrots may help enhance recovery by replacing electrolytes and minerals lost during diarrhea.

Put Bacteria Back In

After the first couple of days, yogurt tends to repopulate the bowel with good bacteria. It isn’t a bad idea to feed it to them. Three (3) ounces a day should do it.

Remember Mother’s Advice

Chicken broth or beef broth is fine for a child over a year old. For some chicken the high salt content of broth is good because it makes them drink when they might not want to. But I wouldn’t use it more than once or twice a day.

Related Posts