Diarrhea is regarded as a disease of children. Though adults can get infected with diarrhea too, but looking at statistics every year death of millions of infants is caused by diarrhea.
Diarrhea is a condition where the victim faces extreme and frequent watery feces, abdominal cramps, fever, abdominal pain and bloating. The frequent and watery stools results in extreme deficiency of fluids, minerals and salt in body of the patient. If not treated in time, the death for an infant child is matter of hours or few days at the most.
The main symptoms of diarrhea related with children are bloody black feces, high temperature fever, facing difficulty in sleeping, sunken face, dry mouth, cheeks or eyes, no wet diapers for three consistent hours and sunken belly or stomach.
The food consumed remains in fluid form through out the digestive system. When it passes through colon the last part of intestine the fluids are absorbed by our body and remain contents secrete out in form of faces. Now what happens in diarrhea is that when the stool reaches in colon, it is usually in such a huge amount that fluids are not absorbed by the human system and stool along with all fluids are consistently secreted out of the body.
Lactose, fructose and artificial sweeteners are main causes of diarrhea in children. Lactose can be found in milk and other diary products, whereas fruits are rich sources of fructose and artificial sweeteners can be found in candies and chocolates.
Since diarrhea results in huge loss of fluids, the best treatment is to immediately replace the fluids. In fact the fluids should be replaced in the same pace as they are being excreted out of the body.
Again its not just fluids, extreme deficiency of other vital contents like salts and mineral is also taking place among other complication of diarrhea. Water mixed with oral rehydration salts the most common remedy practiced all over the world. A simple inexpensive pack of ORS saves millions of infant lives every year.
Though ORS is very common still no worries if can't find a sachet of ORS any where. The composition of ORS is so simple that you can easily create a very effective natural home made rehydration salt yourself.
Take one teaspoon of salt, half teaspoon of sugar and baking soda. Mix these three ingredients in glass of water and you end up with very effectual home made rehydration salt.
Other than rehydration salt, gradually start giving children low fiber diets like boiled rice, leafy vegetables and fruits. But incase of infants keep it to rehydration salts only, you can start giving a low fiber diet like cereals or fruits like bananas to infants after consulting a doctor only.
Maintaining a good hygiene level is very crucial for prevention and during treatment of diarrhea in children. Prefer mineral water, food cooked should be served right away, leaving the food openly allowing it cool down to a mild temperature automatically makes it a perfect dwelling for bacteria. Prefer to use pasteurized dairy products for children as they treated and have less chance of being infected with bacteria.
