What are the symptoms of potassium deficiency in children?

Potassium is an essential trace element for the human body. If the human body lacks potassium, muscle weakness will occur. If the deficiency lasts too long, people will become lack of energy and may even have to stay in bed. If children are deficient in potassium, they need to supplement potassium as soon as possible, otherwise it will affect the normal development of the child's body, causing the child's growth and development to be slow or even stagnant. So, what are the symptoms of potassium deficiency in children?

Symptoms of potassium deficiency in babies

1. When the body lacks potassium, the baby will suffer from general weakness, fatigue, weakened heartbeat, dizziness and severe potassium deficiency can also cause paralysis of the baby's respiratory muscles and death.

2. Low potassium will slow down the baby's gastrointestinal motility, leading to intestinal paralysis, aggravating anorexia, and causing symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and abdominal distension.

3. Tachycardia and irregular heartbeat, muscle weakness, numbness, irritability, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, low blood pressure, mental confusion, and psychological apathy.

What will happen if the baby is born with potassium deficiency?

Congenital potassium deficiency means that the absorption of potassium ions is not good. Congenital potassium deficiency is difficult to treat, especially hereditary potassium deficiency, which requires scientific development to be able to carry out genetic modification therapy to be completely cured.

If the baby lacks potassium, it will reduce the excitability of the muscles, making it impossible for the muscles to contract and relax smoothly, and making them prone to fatigue. In addition, it will hinder intestinal peristalsis and cause constipation; it will also lead to edema, hemiplegia and heart attack.

When the human body does not take in enough potassium, sodium will carry a lot of water into the cells, causing the cells to rupture and leading to edema. A lack of potassium in the blood can cause high blood sugar levels, leading to hyperglycemia. In addition, potassium deficiency causes the most serious damage to the heart and may be the main cause of death from heart disease in humans.

Why do babies lack potassium?

Reason 1: Long-term fasting or insufficient food intake, or insufficient potassium supplementation in fluid replacement leads to potassium deficiency.

Reason 2: Vomiting, continuous gastrointestinal decompression, and small intestinal fistula cause potassium loss through extrarenal pathways, leading to potassium deficiency.

Reason 3 - Excessive excretion of potassium from the kidneys. For example, the use of diuretics such as furosemide and uric acid, potassium loss due to renal tubular disease, and excessive mineralocorticoids can cause continued potassium loss when blood potassium is not high, leading to potassium deficiency.

Reason 4 - Metabolic acidosis. Treatment with glucose and insulin or cellular water and nutrient intake can cause potassium to enter the cells from the extracellular fluid, leading to potassium deficiency.

What to do if your baby lacks potassium

The key to preventing and treating low potassium is potassium supplementation. Oral administration of 10% potassium chloride solution can be used clinically, but the safest and most effective method is to eat more potassium-rich foods, especially fruits and vegetables. Fruits rich in potassium include bananas, strawberries, citrus, grapes, grapefruit, watermelon, etc. Vegetables such as spinach, yam, edamame, amaranth, and onion are also rich in potassium. Soybeans, mung beans, broad beans, kelp, seaweed, yellow croaker, chicken, milk, cornmeal, etc. also contain a certain amount of potassium. Various fruit juices, especially orange juice, are also rich in potassium and can replenish water and energy. It is determined that tea contains 1.1% to 2.3% potassium, so it is the best cooling drink in summer.