Childhood diarrhoea Q1. What is diarrhea? Diarrhoea in children has been defined in many ways in various literatures (according to frequency of stool, weight of stool or consistency). Though the number of stool per day varies greatly from newborn to older children according to age, dietary habit and many other factors, usually more than 3 episode per day with recent change in consistency (ie. loose stool) is considered best to define diarrhea in children. Q2. How is ‘diarrhea in children’ different from adults? Acute diarrhea and resultant dehydration is the second most common cause of death (after Pneumonia) in children below 5 years in India. Children has a relatively large body surface area and less amount of total body water content, Children are mostly unlikely to take sufficient water to replace the lost water during acute diarrhea. Thereby, these two factors make children more prone to dehydration (loss of water from body) easily than adults. Q...
Child specialist: This blog is about the medical issues your child may have while growing up.