How to Prevent and Handle Child Diarrhea

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After knowing the dangers of diarrhea in toddlers and some possible causes, parents also need to know how to prevent and treat child diarrhea so that you can prevent and provide proper treatment when diarrhea attack your loved ones.

Here's how to prevent diarrhea in children:
-Always wash your hands with soap and water before handling your child. Likewise with your child, teach her/him to always wash hands before eating and drinking, after defecating, going out and playing.
-Avoid making a big difference when feeding your child. If you want to introduce new foods, do it slowly and gradually so that your child's stomach is not 'surprised'.
-Throw away food that has fallen to the floor. Although the floor looks clean, but there remains the possibility of harmful bacteria lodged in the floor.
-Clean fruits and vegetables before cooking or given to children.
-Cook food thoroughly, especially when you cook meat and eggs. Germs or bacteria on groceries will die when cooked.
-Check first dairy products before given to your child. Some children have lactose –sugar component on milk- intolerance which makes diarrhea.
-Cek drugs consumed by children. Some medications can affect diarrhea.
-Use safe drinking water or cooked the water until boiling.

But what if your child already affected with diarrhea? Following the first treatment  that can be done to care children with diarrhea:

1. Give liquid or drink and eat
Breast milk, soup, fresh fruit juice, coconut water, and water can be given to replace fluids that have been lost when the child poops. For infants with diarrhea, give milk more often than usual.

For children who are not breastfed anymore, as often as possible given the size of the fluid as follows:
-children under two years: a quarter or half a cup size 250 ml
-children over two years: half to one cup size 250 ml

If the child is vomiting, you should wait up to 10 minutes, then start again giving him water to drink it slowly and gradually.

You should give food to a child who has diarrhea. Although your child refuses, make the kid want to eat little but often. The function of feeding during diarrhea is to give extra energy that reduced during diarrhea and that children don’t lose excessive weight. Foods that are recommended are soft food like rice porridge, mung bean porridge, fish or meat that cooked until tender.

2. Give Oral Rehydration Salts.
ORS is a combination of salt with water. Its function is to help the body replacing fluids lost through diarrhea. Children under 2 years of age need a quarter to half a bowl of 125 ml of ORS, give after he has liquid defecation. As for children over 2 years, give half to one cup of ORS.

3. Sugar and salt solution.
Make this solution if ORS is not available. The solution of water with six teaspoons of sugar mixed with half a teaspoon of salt. How to give a sugar and salt solution is as similar as you give ORS.

Diarrhea can harm your child. Remain vigilant and immediately take the child to the hospital for further treatment if the following conditions in your child happen:
-diare lasted more than 12 hours
-eject liquid stools several times in one hour
-the defecation looks reddish or mixed with blood
-often vomiting
-body fever up to more than 39 degrees Celsius
-child feels thirsty but declines when asked to drink fluids or water
-both sunken eyes inward
-body is very weak
-child is often sleepy or doesn’t respond to your call

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The Right Toys and Games for Your Toddler (2)

I almost forgot to share the other three games that suit your toddler.  So, here they are:

5. Communication Games

Form: chatting on the phone, talking in front of the mirror, looking at books

Benefits: since in the womb, the fetus is trying to listen to the words in native language. At the age of five, children need to be taught to digest the words of the people around him, in various languages, dialects, and intonation.

Encourage your child by continuously taking children to communicate at any time. A study at Harvard University, USA, stated that toddlers who are often involved in the talks, they will show better communication development than children who asked to be silent when parents are speaking. Children are often involved in the conversation may bring up certain topics, and have a lot of vocabulary. Read together and telling stories on a regular basis is also necessary to do.

6. Critical Thinking Games

Form: match the pictures, a guessing playing, make a simple experiment.
 

Benefits: critical thinking is the ability to grow with age. This ability includes difficult ability that takes time to develop, but toddlers are already able to be taught to think critically.

Support your kid by answering his questions, especially when it starts with the word "Why".

7. Cause and Effect Game and Abstract Concept

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Form: snakes and ladders game, kid’s monopoly game, yoyo, simple science experiments, for example, water freezes into ice.

Benefits: recognize the relationship one thing with another thing, and abstract thinking.

When children begin to learn and think, basically they are universal scientist. An experiment on infants aged eight months showed that they've been able to play with numbers. Even children aged 18 months were able to arrange items by categories such as big, small, and colors. Big jump occurs in children aged 2-3 years. With eyes closed, they could mention the items in the room-which previously was shown to him.

Encourage your child to play with all the stuffs in your house, whether it's buttoned jacket or photos on the wall. Your neighborhood offers a variety of playing materials for children, including to learn counting.

Ask kid to learn art, because some of the research results showed that not only monopoly or snakes and ladders games that can sharpen math skills. Art activities such as dancing, singing or painting also hone logical intelligence because there is geometry, causal; draw a line technique, rotating degree, etc.

Allow child to learn from mistakes. From mistakes, your children can learn the causal relationship.

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Diarrhea in Toddlers and the Possible Causes

Diarrheal disease in infant turns rank as a second cause of death in children under five, after pneumonia (pneumonia). Although quite common in infants and toddlers, diarrhea is no longer a disease that can be taken lightly.

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That's why you need to know the cause of diarrhea, the importance of providing care when children suffering from diarrhea and conduct preventive actions. WHO (World Health Organization), the World Health Organization, explained clearly about the signs of diarrhea, namely defecating in a liquid form that is experienced by more than three times a day, lasts for two days or more.

Diarrhea becomes dangerous when children are often issue liquid stools, causing his lack of fluids or dehydration. These conditions are often the cause of death in young children, especially if the removed fluid containing blood. Discharge of blood means your child's life in danger; the diarrhea condition with such symptoms should immediately get medical help.

Causes of diarrhea in children:

1. Viral infection.

Virus called rotavirus can cause diarrhea. WHO data mentioned that the virus is the cause of 15-25% of diarrhea in children aged 6-24 months.

2. Bacterial infections.

Bacteria such as Shigella, Vibrio cholerae, Salmonella, E. coli is a bacterium that causes diarrhea child. Generally diarrhea caused by bacterial infection is followed by symptoms of seizures and bloody stools.

3. Parasites in the bowel.

Diarrhea can also be caused by microscopic parasites that live in the intestines. Symptoms appear usually flatulence as lots of gas in stomach, and much amount of stinking feces.

4. The use of antibiotics.

If during the use of antibiotics your child has diarrhea, this could be related to the treatment. Antibiotics in the child's body can kill the good bacteria in the intestines. What can be done is to consult a doctor about this. Treatment should not be stopped before the doctor gives approval.

5. Food and beverage.

Child’s stomatch may not have been able to accept food or drink that is different from the usual. The food which is too sour, sweet, spicy or salty could be the cause of childhood diarrhea. In infants, when introduced complementary foods, often a side effect of diarrhea, because his stomach was 'shocked' with a new food or drink.

6. Food allergies.

Food allergy-like egg, soy, peanut, and fish- can cause various reactions, one of which is diarrhea. But it’s usually only a short symptom or just happened a few hours until the consumed food removed from the body.

7. Food intolerance.

In contrast with food allergies, food intolerance is not affected by the immune system. One example of food intolerance is the lactose intolerance because the child’s body is not enough to produce lactose, an enzyme needed to digest lactose. Diarrhea can be one of the symptoms of food intolerance.

Knowing the dangers of diarrhea in toddlers and possible causes can help parents to be more careful, anticipate, and handle it properly.

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