Tips for treating and caring for baby’s diarrhea

　　If your baby has diarrhea, you should be a "nurse"! The key points of home care are as follows:

　　Diarrhea treatment in children

　　Pay attention to keeping your child’s belly warm

　　Children's abdomen is prone to cold, and children with diarrhea have already accelerated intestinal peristalsis. If the abdomen is cold again, the intestinal peristalsis will be faster, thus aggravating the condition. The child can be appropriately dressed, and a large mask, bellyband, etc. can be used to surround the baby's navel.

　　Pay attention to protecting your child’s buttocks

　　Due to the increased frequency of defecation, the skin and mucous membranes around the anus must be damaged to varying degrees. Parents should pay special attention to the anus area during care. After defecation, wipe gently with soft toilet paper, or wash lightly with soft gauze dipped in water. After washing, you can apply some oil-based ointment to prevent red buttocks. Diapers should be changed in time to avoid diapers soaked in feces and urine from rubbing against the skin and causing ulcers. Toilets, diapers, and contaminated clothing and sheets used by sick children must be washed and disinfected in time to avoid repeated infections or transmission to other people.

　　Some children with severe diarrhea or malnourished children are prone to prolapse, which manifests as part of the rectal mucosa protruding outside the anus. At this time, parents can use a soft towel to gently push up the prolapsed part when cleaning the child's buttocks. If it fails several times or prolapse occurs repeatedly, local Chinese medicine fumigation and other treatments are required.

　　Give enough fluids by mouth to prevent dehydration

　　Dehydration refers to a phenomenon in which a large amount of fluid in the body, especially extracellular fluid, is lost outside the body, causing electrolyte imbalance in the body, affecting the normal function of important organs in the body, and in severe cases, can be life-threatening. The amount of oral liquids for children with diarrhea is 20~40ml/kg of specific liquids in the first 4 hours, and then taken orally at any time, as much as they can drink

　　There is one thing to pay special attention to. For neonatal diarrhea, parents should use oral supplemental fluid therapy with caution. During the home treatment, if the child experiences any of the following: an increase in the frequency and amount of diarrhea, an inability to eat normally, frequent vomiting, obvious thirst, or a fever exceeding 38°C, he or she should go to the hospital to see a doctor. Doctors can consider whether intravenous infusion is needed to correct dehydration based on the child's condition.

　　Enhance oral care

　　Children with diarrhea sometimes use antibiotics for a long time, which can cause oral mold to grow and cause thrush. Therefore, they should be given more boiled water to clean their mouths. When vomiting occurs, you can use cotton dipped in warm water to gently wipe your mouth. If thrush occurs, apply 1% gentian violet solution to the affected area.

　　Is it right to fast if a child has diarrhea?

　　Comment: It is actually wrong to use fasting for 8-12 hours or even 24-hour starvation therapy for acute diarrhea. Research shows that even in acute diarrhea, the digestion and absorption function of the gastrointestinal tract of children will not completely disappear, and the absorption of nutrients can still reach 60%-90% of normal. Long-term hunger is not only not conducive to the maintenance of nutrition in children, but also further worsens their nutritional status, affects the repair and renewal of intestinal mucosa, reduces the absorptive capacity of the small intestine, reduces immunity, causes repeated infections, and finally leads to a vicious cycle of "diarrhea-malnutrition-prone to diarrhea". Therefore, children with acute diarrhea should continue to feed. Breastfed children can eat milk and water freely; artificially fed children can first feed diluted milk (1 part milk and 2 parts water) for 2-3 days, and then gradually increase to whole milk; children over six months old can use rice soup, porridge or rotten noodles, and give some fresh fruit juice or fruit to supplement potassium, plus some cooked vegetable oil, vegetables, minced meat or minced fish, etc., but they need to be fed from less to more, and gradually transition to the usual diet they are accustomed to.

　　Can taking boiled water with sugar and salt prevent dehydration?

　　Comment: Adding sugar and salt to boiled water will not prevent dehydration.

　　As a nutrient, chicken soup does have a beneficial effect on the human body, but this does not mean that everyone is suitable to drink chicken soup. There is no doubt that infants and young children will lose a large amount of nutrients with their stomach juice when they have diarrhea. Therefore, some young parents want to increase nutrition for their children and like to feed their children highly nutritious liquid foods, such as chicken soup. As everyone knows, feeding chicken soup to children will not only fail to achieve the purpose of strengthening the body, but will also cause trouble for the children.

　　Studies have found that protein synthesis increases significantly after chicken soup enters the human body, and the human body requires 0.45 milligrams of potassium for each gram of protein synthesized. Since potassium continues to enter cells, in order to maintain balance, sodium also enters the blood and cell fluid in large amounts, resulting in hypertonicity of body fluids - hypernatremia. Therefore, infants and young children should not drink chicken soup when they have diarrhea.

　　Drinking chicken soup for diarrhea and nutritional supplements

　　As a nutrient, chicken soup does have a beneficial effect on the human body, but this does not mean that everyone is suitable to drink chicken soup. There is no doubt that infants and young children will lose a large amount of nutrients with their stomach juice when they have diarrhea. Therefore, some young parents want to increase nutrition for their children and like to feed their children highly nutritious liquid foods, such as chicken soup. As everyone knows, feeding chicken soup to children will not only fail to achieve the purpose of strengthening the body, but will also cause trouble for the children.

　　Studies have found that protein synthesis increases significantly after chicken soup enters the human body, and the human body requires 0.45 milligrams of potassium for each gram of protein synthesized. Since potassium continues to enter cells, in order to maintain balance, sodium also enters the blood and cell fluid in large amounts, resulting in hypertonicity of body fluids - hypernatremia. Therefore, infants and young children should not drink chicken soup when they have diarrhea.

　　Children with diarrhea cannot eat any oil.

　　When children suffer from diarrhea, they often tell them to avoid oil. This approach is only suitable for acute intestinal inflammation and should generally not exceed 3 days.

　　Some children are prone to diarrhea, especially those with exudative constitution. Diarrhea can last for a long time and should not avoid oil for a long time. For example, long-term avoidance of oil can cause children to consume fat stored in the body, causing weight loss, and also affects the absorption and utilization of fat-soluble vitamins. Over time, it will affect the growth and development of children. Long-term avoidance of oil can also cause diarrhea, which is prone to occur in children between 6 months and 3 years old, and is called "toddler diarrhea" or chronic non-specific diarrhea. This is related to the enhanced activity of enzymes on the small intestinal mucosa. For example, acylglycidyl cyclase increases prostaglandins, which accelerates gastrointestinal motility and causes diarrhea. This type of diarrhea can be treated with vegetable oils, and polyunsaturated fatty acids inhibit this process. It is beneficial and harmless for babies with long-term diarrhea to eat some vegetable oil. If a nursing mother strictly avoids oil, it can cause diarrhea in the baby, so do not avoid oil.

　　Babies with diarrhea should drink more water

　　Babies with diarrhea should not drink water, because if the baby continues to have diarrhea, he will lose more potassium and sodium. Plain water does not contain these ingredients, and drinking too much water will dilute gastric acid and affect the child's appetite. If your child is thirsty, give him oral rehydration solution. Because oral rehydration solution contains appropriate proportions of sugar, alkali, and sodium chloride, it can help your baby replenish lost electrolytes and help your baby recover as quickly as possible.