Slide 23
Diarrhoea and food When we described treatment with oral fluids earlier, we talked only
about glucose-electrolyte mixture, or salt and sugar water. These babies are
taking another kind of therapy, the very special oral fluid mother's milk* on
the left, and solid food on the right.
* Further information can be found in the TALC slides set Breast Feeding.
Q. Should a child with diarrhoea stop taking his
normal diet? And how long for?
Teacher's Note
Ask students to give their views on this. Ask them about the usual custom where they live.
Find out local hospital practice. The ideas
given here may be rather new, and it may be
helpful if you stop and discuss them. |
A. A child need not stop breast feeding because of
diarrhoea. And a child who is eating food, can go
back to a normal diet after 4 or 6 hours of oral rehydration fluids. A meal may make the child
pass a larger stool, but that does not matter, he
needs the food to give him strength and to prevent
malnutrition.
Q. What do you do if the child vomits food?
A. Give salt and sugar water for a few more hours, and
try to give food again later. If a baby vomits breast
milk, let the mother express her milk for one or two feeds. But start food again as soon as possible.
Feeding is a very important part of oral treatment.
Q. What message about preventing diarrhoea could
you give with this slide?
A. Good food - and especially breast feeding - can prevent diarrhoea. Breast fed babies have fewer
attacks of diarrhoea than bottle fed babies.
If a mother stops breast feeding her baby when he has diarrhoea, her milk will decrease. This may start the
vicious circle of malnutrition and diarrhoea.
Further Discussion
Formerly, people believed that diarrhoea was due to failure of the intestine to absorb fluid and
food. We
now know that most diarrhoea is due to an increased
secretion of fluid, and that in acute diarrhoea,
absorption remains normal. (With chronic diarrhoea,
absorption may be impaired, but food is still necessary.) However, during acute
diarrhoea, food may
pass more quickly through the intestine, so some food,
especially vegetable fibre and fruit skins, may appear
unchanged with stool. It may be helpful to give very
simple foods such as staple porridges for a day. But
return to a full diet as soon as possible. After the
diarrhoea has stopped, give the child one extra meal
each day for one week. This will help him to make up
what has been lost You may find a food which is
culturally acceptable for children with diarrhoea. If so,
encourage that.
