What to do if your baby has diarrhea?

1. How to tell if your baby has diarrhea? Diarrhea is the second most common disease among children in my country, second only to respiratory infections. What to do if a newborn baby has diarrhea? Mom, stop taking things for granted! The frequency and characteristics of a baby\’s stools continue to change with growth and development. How to judge whether the baby has diarrhea? Let’s learn the medical definition of diarrhea. (1) Necessary conditions: Changes in stool properties, such as loose stools, watery stools, mucus stools, or pus and blood stools. (2) Auxiliary conditions: The frequency of bowel movements is more than usual, ≥3 times a day. The first condition must be met. The second auxiliary condition is that as long as the nature of the stool is abnormal, such as loose stools, watery stools, egg-like stools and other situations where the water content of the stools significantly increases, once a day will be counted; if the nature of the stool is Normal, even if the stool is more than 3 times a day, it does not count. Especially for young babies, it may be normal to have more than 3 stools a day. 2. What should parents pay attention to before seeing a doctor? Pay attention to observe whether the baby has any symptoms of discomfort before diarrhea: ★ Whether there is vomiting, the frequency of vomiting and the color of the vomitus; ★ The frequency, color and characteristics of diarrhea; ★ Whether the urine output has decreased; ★ If there is a fever, pay attention to monitoring the body temperature, if the body temperature exceeds 38.5 ℃ can take antipyretic drugs; ★ Try to describe the baby\’s condition to the doctor accurately when seeing a doctor; ★ If you need to collect stool specimens for examination, you can use a clean cup or bottle to collect the stool, and try to send it to the hospital for examination within 1 hour; 3 , When to see a doctor? ▶Symptoms and signs of dehydration (decreased urine output, no tears when crying, sunken eye sockets, dry skin and lip mucosa, sunken anterior fontanelle in infants, poor mental state); ▶Frequent vomiting, inability to eat or drink for 6-8 hours; ▶ Diarrhea and vomiting tend to worsen for more than 3 days; ▶ Coffee-like vomitus or hematemesis, bloody stools, or severe abdominal pain; ▶ Lack of energy and significantly reduced urine output; Those who are less than 6 months old and have chronic underlying diseases; 4 , how to treat? After most babies with diarrhea see a doctor, the doctor will make a diagnosis of diarrhea based on the characteristics of the baby\’s stool and the frequency of stools described by the parents. They will also evaluate whether the child is dehydrated and the degree of dehydration, and make a preliminary estimate of the cause based on the season of onset and age of onset. Provide corresponding treatment according to the baby\’s condition. For some children, doctors may recommend routine stool tests, stool rotavirus antigen tests and stool culture tests. Children who are suspected of dehydration and electrolyte imbalance may take blood tests. A positive stool rotavirus antigen test can confirm the diagnosis of rotavirus enteritis. There is no specific treatment for rotavirus enteritis. Treatment mainly includes: prevention and treatment of dehydration, symptomatic treatment of fever, diet and auxiliary treatment. 5. How to prevent dehydration in babies? The most important principle for babies with diarrhea is to rehydrate and prevent dehydration. If the baby has reduced urine output, no tears when crying, sunken eye sockets, dry skin and lip mucous membranes, sunken anterior fontanelle, poor mental health, etc., it indicates that the baby may be dehydrated and needs to go to the hospital immediately. The doctor will recommend oral rehydration or intravenous rehydration according to the situation. Rehydration. For babies who are not dehydrated, they should also increase the frequency of breastfeeding (within 6 months) or feed more water (over 6 months), or take oral rehydration salts to prevent dehydration. Recommended oral rehydration salt ORSIII. Juice, carbonated drinks and sports drinks contain high sugar and low sodium and other electrolytes. Therefore, they are not as effective as oral rehydration salts in replenishing the baby\’s lost water and electrolytes, so they are not recommended.