Slide 7
Difficulties of intravenous rehydrationPerhaps you have often seen a row of cots like this, and all the
children are having intravenous fluid from bottles and 'drips'. Perhaps if you
are new to this work, you have never seen them. The picture is of a children's
ward in the Caribbean a few years ago. It is an old picture, like the postage
stamp in slide 6, and, you do not see wards like this very often now.
Q. What are the disadvantages of this intravenous treatment? Why do we try to
avoid using IV fluids or 'drips' - even though they can save a child's life?
A. To put up a drip requires skill. Also, you need special equipment, and
special sterile solutions, which are expensive and sometimes difficult to
obtain. Also the treatment has serious complications, especially infection
-either local or general infection.
Now look at the child in picture 2. The tube going to his nose is to bring him oxygen, it is not a naso-gastric tube. However, the tube was temporarily out of place
at the time of the photograph.
Q. What do you notice about the child's eyes?
A. His eyelids are swollen. There is an arrow pointing upwards from the eye, to
show the swelling, which is the opposite of sunken eyes. This is periorbital
oedema. The baby has had too
much IV fluid and he is overhydrated.
Overhydration can cause heart failure, and this is another dangerous
complication of intravenous therapy. That is why the child needed oxygen,
because he had heart failure.
