rehydration, an important action to overcome diarrhea

Diarrhea is a condition in which a person has a bowel movement more than 3 (three) times a day with the consistency of liquid stools. Stool in people with diarrhea can be without or accompanied by mucus or blood, depending on the causative factor. Watery diarrhea in children is most often caused by rotavirus, so it does not require antibiotics to treat it. While diarrhea accompanied by mucus or blood (dysentery) is usually caused by Shigella sp or Entamoeba histolitica, the management of this diarrhea requires appropriate antibiotics. Likewise diarrhea caused by Vibrio cholera. Cholera sufferers usually experience frequent bowel movements (more than 10 times/day), colored liquid stools like rice/leri washing water. Because of the large amount of fluid excreted, the patient tends to become dehydrated.

 

Even though it seems simple, diarrhea in children that is not handled seriously and properly can cause quite serious effects. Until now, diarrhea is still one of the most common causes of under-five mortality, especially in poor and developing countries, including Indonesia. Most of the deaths of toddlers with diarrhea are caused by untreatable dehydration.

Delay in getting help plays a role in the occurrence of deaths from diarrhea. Often children brought to the hospital are already in a state of severe dehydration and are accompanied by a decrease in consciousness or other factors such as seizures, so that treatment becomes more difficult. Even though with the right initial therapy, diarrhea will be easily cured.
People who are experiencing diarrhea will excrete a lot of fluids through feces or vomit which often accompanies diarrhea. Therefore, the right step to take is to provide sufficient fluids. Fluids are given to replace fluids that are wasted due to diarrhea or vomiting as well as for maintenance (maintaining the body's condition so that it is no longer dehydrated). Mothers whose toddlers have diarrhea should continue to give breast milk if their children were still breastfeeding before the diarrhea. In addition, children can also be given other drinks, such as milk, vegetable broth, soup, ORS, LGG (sugar-salt solution) and so on.

 

If the child can consume food, the mother should provide daily food. Research shows that during diarrhea, there is damage to the intestinal tract. Giving food will speed up the healing (healing) of the damage. Food is also important for the supply of nutrition in people with diarrhea. Diarrhea and malnutrition are known to be a vicious circle, malnutrition makes it easier for children to suffer from diarrhea and conversely diarrhea can lead to malnutrition. These principles conflict with the beliefs of the past that children with diarrhea must be fasted, breastfeeding should be stopped, and so on. Collaboration of all parties is needed to socialize the importance of rehydration to treat diarrhea and prevent worse consequences.

 

Parents' knowledge and awareness of the health problems of their under-five children is of course very important so that children who are experiencing diarrhea do not fall into a worse condition. Parents must know what steps to take if their child has diarrhea. In the early stages, give fluids orally and continue feeding as long as the child wants. If the diarrhea continues with a frequency that is quite frequent (more than six times) accompanied by frequent vomiting, or the frequency is not too frequent but the stool is accompanied by mucus or blood, otherwise the child is immediately taken to a health service center for further therapy. In cases of moderate and severe dehydration, people with diarrhea require intravenous rehydration (infusion) to replace lost fluids.

 

However, prevention is certainly better than treatment. A clean lifestyle is still the main key to overcoming the transmission of this diarrheal disease. A simple example, the habit of washing hands with soap before eating has been shown to reduce the incidence of diarrhea with dysentery caused by bacteria. In addition, we need to maintain the habit of covering food with a hood so that flies or other insects don't land so that the chain of transmission can be broken. It is important to socialize this simple and easy healthy living habit to the community, even from an early age it should be introduced to children both at the family level and in schools.