What is the cause of the child's diarrhea and hunger?

The physical health of children is an issue that parents are most concerned about. Since children's immune and digestive abilities are not as strong as those of adults, it is inevitable that they will have some diseases. Parents should take good care of their children in daily life. Children sometimes have symptoms of diarrhea, and we generally think that they need to be hungry to relieve the symptoms. In fact, this approach is not scientific.

When children have diarrhea, they lose water very quickly and the food they eat is not easily absorbed. Therefore, the most important thing to prevent with diarrhea is dehydration. In addition to water loss, there is also a loss of electrolytes such as sodium and potassium. "Preventing dehydration starts at the very beginning of diarrhea. Let your child drink small amounts of water or porridge multiple times a day, or increase the frequency of breastfeeding, or feed diluted milk and oral rehydration salts."

In most cases of dehydration, the electrolyte loss and water loss ratio are balanced, so intravenous rehydration is not required. Oral rehydration is recommended to solve the problem. Oral rehydration is the basic medication for treating diarrhea and is also the best method recommended by the World Health Organization for treating diarrhea and dehydration in children. In clinical practice, some parents ask whether their children need intravenous drip or use antibiotics or antidiarrheal drugs after the doctor prescribes oral rehydration salts. Experts explain that in most cases of diarrheal dehydration, the electrolyte loss and water loss ratio are balanced, so intravenous rehydration is not necessary and oral rehydration can solve the problem. Compared with intravenous rehydration, oral rehydration is more convenient, reduces children's mental stress and physical pain, has fewer adverse reactions, is safer to take, and can also reduce medical expenses and economic burden. "When you come to the hospital for infusion, there is only a packet of 200 ml, and the child may excrete it all in one bowel movement. However, oral rehydration can be done anytime and anywhere, even at home."

As for the use of antibiotics, experts say that whether it is respiratory infection or diarrhea, not all children need to use antibiotics to recover. The indiscriminate use of antibiotics not only causes economic waste, but more importantly, it increases drug resistance, renders antibiotics ineffective, causes dysbiosis, weakens children's resistance, causes loss of appetite, and leads to persistent diarrhea. Antibiotics should only be considered if tests determine that the diarrhea is caused by bacterial infection.

As for antidiarrheal drugs, experts pointed out that in children with acute infectious diarrhea, antidiarrheal drugs are not only unnecessary, "virus-infected diarrhea often recovers in about a week, because diarrhea is caused by the shortening of intestinal villi, which cannot absorb water. Antidiarrheal drugs only stop the intestines from moving, but have no effect on the recovery of intestinal villi damage."

Whether to have a stool test depends on the cause of the diarrhea and the timing of seeing a doctor. For example, diarrhea caused by rotavirus infection, which is common in autumn, is a self-limiting disease. The positive rate of stool tests is highest on the third or fourth day of onset. Testing after this stage will have no effect. The longer the diarrhea lasts, the more important it is to test your stool, because clinically some lingering diarrhea may be caused by infection.

In the above article, we introduced something that everyone often does, which is to let children starve when they have symptoms of diarrhea. This practice has no scientific basis, and the above article has made a detailed analysis.