Symptoms of dehydration in children

Dehydration of light and medium degree

• Weight loss is 5%.

• Dry mouth, less tears when crying.

• The child still plays, but less.

• Urination less frequently than usual, somewhat silent.

Heavy dewatering

• Weight loss 5-10%

• Lethargy or increased irritability

• Sunken eyes

• Sunken soft spot on the head( fontanel), in children up to the year

• Dry mouth, no tears

• Dry, pale, wrinkledskin

• Rare urination( only three to four times a day or less)

• Urine yellowish

When the intestinal mucosa becomes inflamed, it heals very slowly. Mucous has millions of outgrowths, villi, through which liquefied food penetrates and is absorbed by the body. With inflammation, this brush-like mucosa is damaged along with the digestive enzymes that it contains, and passes the food undigested. The word "diarrhea" comes from the Greek, meaning "flow".

With gastroenteritis, the stool is frequent, watery, green, slimy, with an unpleasant odor, gushing and sometimes dyed with blood. Usually there is a painful red rash around the anus. In addition to this, the child usually has other signs of a viral infection: airway damage, poor overall health and a painful appearance.

Water exchange in the body of a child

The human embryo has a water content of 97%.At birth, this amount is somewhat reduced( up to 75-80%) and already in the first months of life approaches the usual rate( 65-70%).

For the early childhood is characterized by instability and tension of water metabolism, which is determined by the intensive growth of the child and the immaturity of the endocrine and nervous regulation of water metabolism.

The daily requirement of a child in water( in the first year of life) is 100-150 ml per kilogram of weight, which is almost 3 times more than that of an adult. With natural feeding, the child receives the required amount of water with the mother's milk;with the artificial feeding of water requires more, and it must be additionally introduced into the body of the child.

In early childhood, water is excreted mainly through the skin and lungs. The processes of urination in an early child are still poorly developed, the full maturation of kidney function occurs only in the second year of life. The amount of daily urination in young children is approximately 7% of body weight. The rest of the water leaves his body due to breathing and skin evaporation. With high temperature and frequent breathing, the amount of water lost can reach high levels, and then the child is threatened by dehydration. This should not be allowed, and in order to prevent dehydration the child should be given a little water periodically, since the process of dehydration in children is very difficult because of the imperfection of the regulation of metabolism.

Syndrome of dehydration in children is usually accompanied by vomiting, diarrhea, a sharp increase in temperature( toxic syndrome).

With pathological water retention, the body develops a so-called edematic syndrome, which is more common in older children with rheumatism
me , circulatory diseases, liver and kidneys.