Is baby diarrhea contagious?

Under normal circumstances, baby diarrhea is generally not contagious, but if it is rotavirus, it can be contagious. If the baby's diarrhea is severe, parents should pay attention to it and take the baby to the hospital for examination and treatment in time. If the diarrhea is contagious, it must be isolated to avoid infecting others. Pay more attention to rest and keep the baby's abdomen warm to prevent the baby's stomach from catching a cold.

Is rotavirus diarrhea contagious?

Rotavirus is highly contagious and is mainly transmitted through the fecal-oral route, but can also be transmitted through the respiratory tract. Young children can be infected through contact with contaminated hands, toys, etc. According to tests, rotavirus will not die within 1 hour at a high temperature of 50℃; it can survive for 7 years under severe cold conditions of -20℃; and it can be stored for a long time in an environment of -70℃. It also has a strong tolerance to acids and alkalis, and ordinary detergents have no killing effect on it, but it cannot reproduce in the external environment. It is precisely because of these characteristics of the virus that it can lurk for a long time in an unfavorable environment. Once it has the opportunity to enter the human body, it will multiply in large numbers and cause disease; then it will be excreted from the body with feces, polluting the external environment. Re-infect others. This cycle repeats itself over and over again, and humans have yet to find an effective drug that can effectively kill the virus.

Rotavirus diarrhea is mainly transmitted through fecal-oral or oral-oral transmission, and can also be transmitted through water sources or the respiratory tract. Rotavirus diarrhea in adults often presents as water-based outbreaks. Because rotavirus is relatively stable in the environment and is not easy to die naturally, it can also be transmitted through daily contact. Neonatal rotavirus infection mainly comes from maternal infection, birth canal infection and hospital infection. Rotavirus infection can be spread in hospitals by nursing staff.

Symptoms of rotavirus diarrhea in babies

1. Rotavirus diarrhea ranges from asymptomatic, mild illness to severe cases of fatal gastroenteritis, dehydration, and electrolyte imbalance. Its incubation period is 1 to 3 days. Children aged 6 to 24 months have severe symptoms, while older children or adults mostly have mild or subclinical infections.

2. Increased body temperature. Fever may precede or occur at the onset of diarrhea. At the same time, the children also show symptoms such as not liking to play, not wanting to eat, being annoying, and crying. Some pathogens cause diarrhea without fever, and the temperature may even be slightly lower than normal.

3. Bloody stool. After being infected, children generally develop clinical symptoms mainly characterized by acute gastroenteritis, namely watery diarrhea, accompanied by fever, vomiting and abdominal pain. The diarrhea is mostly white rice soup-like or yellow-green egg drop-like loose stools with a foul odor. In severe cases, death may occur due to dehydration and complications such as pneumonia, toxic myocarditis, etc. When a child has diarrhea, if there is blood in the stool or there is bloody or purulent stool, and the amount of stool is small each time, but the child sits in the potty and is unwilling to get up, it may be dysentery, jejunal tortuosity diarrhea, or enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli diarrhea, and the child should seek medical attention immediately.

4. Vomiting. Rotavirus diarrhea is often accompanied by vomiting. The onset is acute, with vomiting first and diarrhea later, accompanied by mild to moderate fever. During vomiting, it is difficult to take liquids. At this time, parents should keep their children as quiet as possible to reduce the number of vomiting episodes.