Dr. Rahul Sharma

Diarrhea is never a pleasant experience especially for children. Thankfully, diarrhea does not last long. Loose common stools are the most recognizable symptom of diarrhea. This can often be accompanied by vomiting, nausea, cramps and dehydration. If your child also suffers from fever and weight loss or can see bloody mucus in their stool, you should contact your doctor at the earliest.

Some of the common causes of diarrhea in children are:

1. Gastrointestinal infections - Viruses like rotavirus and parasites like giardia are the most common causes of diarrhea in children. This type of diarrhea can last from 5 to 14 days and can be cured with the help of laxatives and antibiotics.
2. Food poisoning - Diarrhea caused by food poisoning usually lasts for not longer than 24 hours.
3. Food allergies - Diarrhea is a common symptom of a food allergy. It usually stops once you stop eating whatever you are allergic to.
4. Crohn's disease - This is a chronic inflammatory disease of the digestive system. With Crohn's disease, the loose stool is often accompanied by blood.
5. Celiac disease - If your body cannot digest gluten, you may be suffering from Celiac disease.

Diarrhea is highly contagious. It can spread through:

1. Dirty hands
2. Contaminated food or water
3. Direct contact with fecal matter
4. Touching a contaminated surface
5. Diarrhea on its own is not a very serious issue. However, it may cause dehydration which can lead to a number of further complications. Some of the signs of dehydration cased by diarrhea are dizziness, dry mouth, dark urine, dry skin and lack of energy. Thus if your child is suffering from diarrhea, give him plenty of water and lots of rest.

To protect your child against diarrhea, all you need are a few lifestyle Ensure your child washes their hands well before and after-

Caring for Your Child at Home:

• Make washing hands after using the toilet a part of toilet
• Make sure your child drinks plenty of fluids.
• Do not feed them foods that seem to trigger diarrhea.
• Wash your hands often, especially after each diaper change, to avoid spreading bacteria in the home.
• You should continue breast-feeding when your baby has diarrhea. Breast milk can help ease symptoms of diarrhea and speed up recovery.
• Continue your child's regular diet and give more liquids to replace those lost while the diarrhea continues if there are no signs of dehydration.
• Use an oral rehydration solution (ORS) to replace lost fluids in non-dehydrated children.
• Keep all bathroom surfaces clean. It is also a good idea to flush the toilet only after the lid has been lowered.
• Wash all fruits and vegetables thoroughly before eating
• Wash all utensils that have come in contact with raw meat well before using them for anything else.
• Keep all raw meats refrigerated or frozen. Once meat has been defrosted, do not freeze the raw meat again.
• Food cooked like boiled, fried or those which can be peeled e.g. boiled egg, banana, orange, boiled rice, etc. can be eaten when out of home.
• Teach your child to only drink from purified sources of water.
• Do not wash pet utensils in the same sink used for cooking vessels and food items.
• Keep an eye on what your child eats to heck if they may be allergic to anything.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

Constipation causes a lot of discomfort to children. A lot of factors are responsible for constipation among children.

Some of them are:

1. Deliberate Withholding: Often children may consciously avoid visiting the toilet, which may make them feel constipated. This may be due to embarrassment, especially in public spaces or they might be too engaged in playing to not go to the toilet, altogether. Some children do it out of fear when a previous toilet experience has been particularly painful.
2. Illness and Medication: Infections and illnesses, especially ones pertaining to the stomach cause the child to become constipated. Many medicines and supplements also affect the digestive system and can lead to constipation.
3. Diet: This is the primary cause of constipation in children. If the child's diet has low water and fibre content and heavily features sugar and processed foods, stool becomes hard and bowel movement gets restricted.

Treatment for constipation in children:

Constipation in children is treated differently than in adults as their diets and patterns of bowel movement are dissimilar. The primary treatments for constipation in children are:

1. Dietary Adjustment - Making changes to the child's diet by including high fibre foods (such as fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads, cereals, etc.) can help cure constipation. Compelling the child to intake ample fluids in the form of water or milk is also necessary. Sugary drinks must be avoided.
2. Stool softeners and laxatives - The administration of bowel movement enhancing medication is the simplest way of treating constipation in children. There are various kinds of stool softeners and laxatives that are safe for children and must always be used under the supervision of a paediatrician.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

Child Aphasia is complex disorder that is caused by damage to parts of the brain that controls language and speech. This disorder affects the child's ability to express herself through words and understand the speech of other people. The severity of the problem depends on the extent of the damage as well as the location of the damage. Since this is not an inborn trouble, therefore, you should be much more careful as so you notice that your kid is facing language disorder. A speech pathologist can diagnose language disorders and teach your child strategies to help.

What are the leading symptoms of aphasia in kids?

1. Not understanding speech is one of the commonest symptoms. Most patients cannot understand spoken or written language. Typically in these cases, the patient suffers from fluent Aphasia, which is caused by damage to the left temporal lobe of the brain. The patient's speech might seem meaningless and incoherent with lots of unnecessary words being used. The child usually becomes upset when people don't understand what he is saying.
2. Patients suffering from this disorder also have trouble expressing their thoughts and producing language easily and take a long time to communicate. Only short sentences are used by patients with words often left out, making the sentence sound incomplete. Such children suffer from non-fluent Aphasia where they understand what others are saying but cannot communicate or speak well themselves Their speech is almost similar to that of telegraphic languages that are usually followed by those toddlers who are just learning how to speak.
3. Some children suffering from Aphasia might have trouble repeating words even though they don't have problem understanding what others are saying. These children suffer from conduction Aphasia and will be able to reproduce only parts of a sentence if asked to repeat.
4. Children affected with this disorder may see to be not listening to you or ignoring you.
5. Such kids might also have behavioral problems and may not be able to keep up with their friends and classmates. They will also suffer from forgetfulness.

Causes of Aphasia: The leading cause of Aphasia is brain injury, brain infection, brain tumour or abscess or bleeding in the brain.

Diagnosis of the disease: The disorder is diagnosed by a speech therapist who assesses the condition with a variety of tools to figure out the extent of damage. Its best to take your child to a paediatric speech pathologist who is an expert in treating children with brain injuries. The child will then be assessed on auditory comprehension, verbal expression, reading and writing ability and functional communication.

Treatment: There are many people who think that the speech trouble cannot be treated, but they are completely wrong. There are various ways to treat Aphasia. The younger the patient the better the chances of recovery since the brain is not that developed to handle specific functions in kids as in adults. The treatment will depend on the severity of the condition and the goal that is to be achieved. Factors behind this trouble need to be determined first otherwise the perfect treatment cannot be decided. Some of the most prominent factors are aphasia type, brain-injury cause, age, brain-lesion size and positioning and others.

Some of the leading tips that can be applied as per Association of National Stroke are as follows:

1. Using props can be helpful in getting across messages.
2. Speaking slowly and staying calm while speaking.
3. Drawing pictures or words on paper for communication.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

If you are finding certain symptoms like stomach pain, cramping, frequent diarrhoea, weight loss of your child or fever, then there are chances that he is suffering from Crohn's disease. Crohn's disease is a bowel disease that causes swelling and inflammation along the digestive tract of your child. Mostly, it affects the end of the small intestine, but it can occur anywhere from the mouth to the anus.

Causes behind the disease: It is not common in children, but if your child is showing symptoms, then one of the following may be the reason:

1. Immunity system of the child,
2. Genetics, and
3. Environment.

The main cause behind such a disease can be any of the above. However, it has been found that if you have someone suffering from this disease in the family, then your child has more chances of getting affected by it.

Diagnosing Crohn's disease: If you find the above-mentioned symptoms in your child, then it is better to take him or her to a doctor. Mostly, this disease is chronic in nature, meaning that it will continue even if it is treated. However, with proper treatment the symptoms can be reduced.

1. Different lab tests that include a blood test for blood count and white blood cell count, and stool test to look for the bacteria that cause the inflammation and urine.
2. X-Ray for detecting whether your child is suffering from Crohn's disease and what is the exact position of it in the digestive tract.
3. If further required, they may do an endoscopy to find out the exact location and get more details.

Complications arising out of Crohn's disease: If your child is suffering from this disease and is left without treatment for long, he or she may suffer from the following complications.

1. When the disease thickens, it may obstruct the intestinal walls by swelling of the intestine. Thus, the space from where the digestive matter passes becomes less and may lead to bowel obstruction.
2. Fissures may develop at the mucus membrane of the anus.
3. Fistulas or ulcers can occur as they tunnel through the affeced area to the nearby tissues. All these are painful for your child to bear.
4. Your child cannot absorb the nutrients of the food like any other child and hence there are chances that they suffer from nutritional deficiencies.

With such problems that may not seem very huge in the beginning, your child may lose his appetite and forget about normal living.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!