3 steps to help children with diarrhea recover quickly

Children with diarrhea need to be provided with more nutrients than usual, at the same time, they need to be given enough water and minerals, and food hygiene must be ensured to avoid recurrence.

Dr. Nguyen Tran Nam, Deputy Director of the City Children's Hospital, said that children with diarrhea often have abnormal amounts of water in their stools, and defecate more than three times a day. Therefore, the disease can have short-term and long-term effects on health, and needs to be treated properly for children to recover well.

Drink enough water

The first step to help children recover from diarrhea is to replenish enough water, minerals, and nutrients, possibly more than before the illness. Families should feed their children more meals or milk, use soft, liquid, easily absorbed foods, and the type of food the baby likes, to help them recover more easily.

Children with diarrhea should drink enough water, fruit juice, milk... to recover their bodies. Photo: Freepik

Eat nutritious food

Dr. Nam advises parents to supplement enough essential nutrients such as meat, fish, fat, and supplement micronutrients such as zinc, calcium, probiotics, etc. Adults should not have the mentality that children with diarrhea should only eat porridge with salt to avoid stomach pain. This method causes malnutrition, making it difficult to recover quickly, especially for children with underlying diseases. Families also need to pay attention to food safety and hygiene, eating cooked food and drinking boiled water to minimize the risk of recurrence in children.

According to Dr. Nam, diarrhea has a high risk of recurring in children, because it is directly related to the diet, crowded environments, such as crowded playgrounds, dormitories... Therefore, the doctor emphasizes the issue of hygiene for children, including the hygiene of children's and adults' hands; ensuring food safety, not eating at unsafe restaurants or reusing old food.

Children use standard toilets and wash their hands after using them to prevent diarrhea. Photo: Tung Dinh — Children use standard toilets and wash their hands after using them to prevent diarrhea. Photo: *Tung Dinh*

Use medicine properly and practice good hygiene.

Parents should give their children appropriate medication according to professional instructions and not overuse antibiotics. Children's toys, doorknobs, and tabletops can contain bacteria that cause gastrointestinal diseases. Therefore, families should periodically disinfect these items.

Children also need clean, standard toilets when defecating. A clean, sanitary environment helps to minimize the spread of disease to many children.

Families and schools should keep toilets clean by regularly disinfecting surfaces and flushing them with clean water after use to limit the growth of bacteria. Toilets need enough water to clean waste sources and be well-ventilated; there should be adequate drainage so that waste does not stagnate or flow back, causing illness to the user. Adults should train children to wash their hands with soap after using the toilet to limit the spread of bacteria from hands to the body.

In addition, children should exercise according to their physical condition. Regular physical exercise helps improve health, reduce the risk of disease and when sick, will recover faster.

Chile - Que Anh

The School Hygiene Project is part of the School Light program, with the goal of eliminating degraded toilets. In 2022, the Hope Foundation and Sanofi Vietnam handed over 20 new, spacious toilets to students and teachers in Van Ho district, Son La province; at the same time, organized training and education activities on school hygiene.

With the desire that children in the highlands have conditions to ensure their health to study, the Hope Fund, with the support of the Enterogermina probiotic brand, has relaunched the School Hygiene project in Dong Van, Ha Giang. The project aims to build 20 standard toilets, support clean water filtration systems at some schools, and at the same time popularize good hygiene habits for students. To join the project, readers can find out more here.

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