The main symptom of diarrhea in children is the allocation of loose, watery stools three or more times a day for several days. Depending on the cause, one of the following symptoms may be added: chills, fever, loss of bowel movements, nausea or vomiting, pain or abdominal cramps. If the child is pooping with water, you need to provide him with a plentiful drinking regimen and consult a doctor.
Dehydration symptoms
Diarrhea itself is not too dangerous, but you need to understand that this is only a symptom. And besides, abundant bowel movements lead to dehydration. If the child is pooping with water, then you need to remember this first. A small organism will quickly begin to suffer from a lack of fluid.
Symptoms may include:
- Great thirst.
- Lack of urination for 3 hours or more.
- Severe lethargy.
- Dry mouth.
- Sunken eyes, cheeks in the most severe cases.
When to seek help
Diarrhea can become dangerous if it leads to severe dehydration. If the child is pooping with water, this may signal a more serious problem. Therefore, do not assume that diarrhea is a trifle that will pass by itself. There are a number of cases when you need to see a doctor immediately:
- The child poops water for more than 24 hours.
- His temperature rises.
- He complains of severe abdominal pain.
- The stool contains blood or pus.
Consider the reasons
To quickly help a child, you need to know what really happens in his body. Diarrhea is a symptom that is characteristic of many diseases, so diarrhea alone cannot be treated. Potential causes include infections of the digestive tract, food allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, and bacterial damage. And even this list is far from complete. Therefore, if a child is pooping with water, his condition should be evaluated by a doctor.
Gastrointestinal infections
Vital functions of viruses, bacteria or parasites sometimes lead to chronic diarrhea. Children may become infected through contaminated water, drinks, or food. After infection, some children have problems digesting carbohydrates, such as lactose, or milk protein. Of course, parents cannot immediately make the correct diagnosis and continue to offer the baby the usual food, stimulating the development of diarrhea. The problem can cause prolonged diarrhea, often up to 6 weeks after infection.
It is important to understand that it is necessary not only to remove the symptom itself, but also to eliminate the cause. In medical practice, it happens that parents go to the hospital, whose child has been drinking water for a year, with slight improvements in intervals, and they believe that everything is within normal limits.
Food allergies and intolerances
Food allergies are a common cause of diarrhea, especially before the age of one year. At its core are failures in the immune system. In this case, there can only be one treatment - to find the allergen product and exclude it from the diet for at least several months. For example, if a baby experiences stool problems after feeding it in the form of milk porridge, an allergy to milk protein may be suspected. In any case, if the child poops yellow water, you need to analyze his diet.
Intolerance is another reaction that has nothing to do with allergies. It develops due to a lack of enzymes for the digestion of certain food components.
What are intolerances in children:
- Milk protein. Usually appears in the first year of life, sometimes when the child is a month old. He can start to poop with water due to intolerance to the mixture or even breast milk, which is less common.
- Lactose free. The case considered above is often temporary. Gradually, children outgrow the problem and begin to eat, like all peers. If at 3 years the child poops water after tea with milk, then they are already talking about intolerance to lactose - milk sugar.
- Fructose. This is a condition that can cause diarrhea after eating foods or drinks containing fructose — the sugar found in fruits, fruit juices, and honey. If after apples or pears the child poaches with yellow water, you need to limit the consumption of these products.
- Sucrose. This is a condition that can cause diarrhea after eating foods or drinks containing white sugar.
Functional diarrhea
Diarrhea is not always a pathology. If a month-old baby is pooping with water, but does not show signs of anxiety, then perhaps for him this is a variant of the norm. Functional diarrhea occurs not only in infants, but also in young children (1 to 3 years old) and preschool children (3 to 5 years old). They have four or more watery or loose stools daily and have no other symptoms. They usually grow well and gain weight. But especially for kids. If a child poops water a month, but at the same time sucks well and adds at least 800 g per month, smiles and walks, most likely, everything is fine with him.
Diagnosis of diarrhea
Doctors can use information from the child’s medical and family history, physical examination, or tests to find out the cause. So get ready to tell how long the child has had diarrhea, how many times a day he goes to the toilet, what the stool looks like, and whether he has other symptoms. Information about what the baby ate and drank in recent days will be important. During a physical examination, the doctor checks the blood pressure, symptoms of dehydration.
Specific tests
Usually, first of all, specialists try to conduct laboratory tests of feces. It can show the presence of blood and signs of infection, food allergies, and digestive problems. This may be a malabsorption of certain sugars, proteins or nutrients. That is, the doctor will be able to make an assumption why the child is pooping with water or at least rule out some points. Other studies:
- Blood tests.
- Hydrogen breath tests.
Fasting tests
A doctor may use endoscopy to look inside the body and find the cause of diarrhea. Endoscopic procedures include:
- Colonoscopy
- Flexible sigmoidoscopy.
- Endoscopy of the upper gastrointestinal tract.
All methods are not always used at once. Most often, one or two is enough.
How to treat diarrhea
It depends a lot on the cause. Doctors may be able to reduce or stop diarrhea after they discover the mechanism that causes it.
- With infections of the gastrointestinal tract. In this case, the specialist should prescribe antibiotics for the treatment of bacterial or parasitic infections. If there are long-term problems with the digestion of certain carbohydrates or proteins after infection, the doctor may recommend changing the menu. Usually, after a few months, digestion is fully restored and you can return to your normal diet.
- Functional disorders of the digestive tract. This is a large group, and in each case, the doctor will make a decision based on laboratory tests and his observations.
- Food allergies and intolerances. Your doctor will recommend avoiding foods that cause a reaction. Keeping a diary about what your child eats and drinks will help the doctor find out.
There is a general treatment regimen if the child is pooping with water. What to do in this or that case, we briefly examined above, and how to act, while the diagnosis is unknown? It’s important to calm down first. If at the same time the baby feels normal, then nothing bad happens. For severe pain, call an ambulance.
General treatment regimen
A sick child needs rest. If he knows how to use the pot, then put it near the bed. For a baby up to a year and a half, it is advisable to stock up with inexpensive diapers or a large number of panties. The second important point is the drinking regimen. The body loses a lot of fluid during diarrhea. Make-up, decoctions and compotes will help to fill it. The pomegranate skin added to the compote helps to fix the chair, as well as rice broth. This is not a treatment, but only a way to alleviate the condition of the child.
If the child poops green water, then dysbiosis is possible. To make the correct diagnosis, you need to pass tests. When confirmed, the specialist will prescribe drugs that will help neutralize the hostile microflora. And then it will be possible to inoculate the intestines with beneficial bacteria. For this, pharmacy drugs are used, but the body can completely restore the colony of bacteria on its own. True, this will take a little more time.
Preventive measures
Nutrition plays an important role in treating diarrhea in children. Depending on the cause, a change in diet may reduce an unpleasant symptom. Talk with your doctor before putting the crumbs on a strict diet. A doctor or nutritionist can recommend a healthy diet plan. But the standard scheme for severe diarrhea is as follows: do not feed the first day, only drink. If the condition improves the next day, you can have a couple of crackers and a warm broth. The rest of the products are gradually introduced, with the exception of milk and fruits, it is better to wait a couple of weeks with them. This also includes pastries and sweets.
Nutrition is not only a therapeutic, but also a preventive factor. Every day the child should receive only fresh soups and cereals, salads. Mayonnaise and fatty sauces cannot be used as dressing. Then digestion will be healthy and the chance of developing diarrhea will decrease several times.
Often a child at 4 years old is pooping with water due to the fact that he begins to visit fast food restaurants with his parents, try french fries and Coca-Cola. The children's digestive system is simply not able to cope with such stresses. Therefore, when once again you want to please the crumbs delicious, remember about homemade milk jelly, fruit casseroles and oatmeal cookies. Tasty, fast and not harmful. Even in the case of allergic reactions, you can find a replacement product allergen.
Chronic diarrhea
There is a big difference in whether diarrhea was the result of one of the above reasons or whether this phenomenon occurs regularly. In this case, you need to examine the gastrointestinal tract. Most often, a lack of one of the enzymes leads to such a problem. A child with chronic diarrhea should eat foods that do not worsen symptoms and provide good nutrition for normal growth and development.
What to avoid for a child with chronic diarrhea
It is difficult to unequivocally answer this question, it all depends on the individual reaction of his body. In very brief terms, a child should avoid foods that worsen symptoms. Keep a diary to find out exactly what the reaction is. Observe what the baby was eating today and how he felt after that. This diary will be a real helper, as it will help identify foods that exacerbate the symptoms of diarrhea.
Talk to your doctor. Knowing what exactly causes a watery stool, it will quickly help to find a solution.
Instead of a conclusion
This is only part of the reasons that can lead to the development of watery stool in a child. In fact, there can be many more. For infants, this is an acquaintance with new food products, as well as the “launch” of the digestive tract itself and the gradual development of the enzymatic system. These processes do not always go smoothly.
For an older child, quite often the cause of watery stools are errors in nutrition. But severe and prolonged diarrhea, especially if it is accompanied by fever, vomiting and pain, is no longer a joke. The viral or bacterial nature of this phenomenon - it does not matter, a specialist should deal with it. If the condition is normal, then call the pediatrician at home and follow his recommendations. If it gets worse, call an ambulance immediately. Of course, no one wants to go to the intestinal-viral department of the infectious diseases hospital, but sometimes there is no choice. But the child will undergo a full examination, and you will receive a treatment regimen.