What to feed baby for diarrhea
When your child has diarrhea: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia
Diarrhea is the passage of loose or watery stools. For some children, diarrhea is mild and will go away within a few days. For others, it may last longer. It can make your child lose too much fluid (dehydrated) and feel weak.
The stomach flu is a common cause of diarrhea. Medical treatments, such as antibiotics and some cancer treatments can also cause diarrhea.
This article speaks of diarrhea in children over 1 year of age.
It is easy for a child with diarrhea to lose too much fluid and become dehydrated. Lost fluids need to be replaced. For most children, drinking the kinds of fluids they normally have should be enough.
Some water is OK. But too much water alone, at any age, can be harmful.
Other products, such as Pedialyte and Infalyte, may help keep a child well-hydrated. These products can be bought at the supermarket or pharmacy.
Popsicles and Jell-O can be good sources of fluids, especially if your child is vomiting. You can slowly get large amounts of fluids into children with these products.
You may also give your child watered-down fruit juice or broth.
Do not use medicines to slow down your child's diarrhea without talking to a doctor first. Ask your child's health care provider if using sports drinks is OK.
In many cases, you can continue feeding your child as usual. The diarrhea will normally go away in time, without any changes or treatment. But while children have diarrhea, they should:
- Eat small meals throughout the day instead of 3 big meals.
- Eat some salty foods, such as pretzels and soup.
When necessary, changes in the diet may help. No specific diet is recommended. But children often do better with bland foods. Give your child foods such as:
- Baked or broiled beef, pork, chicken, fish, or turkey
- Cooked eggs
- Bananas and other fresh fruits
- Applesauce
- Bread products made from refined, white flour
- Pasta or white rice
- Cereals such as cream of wheat, farina, oatmeal, and cornflakes
- Pancakes and waffles made with white flour
- Cornbread, prepared or served with very little honey or syrup
- Cooked vegetables, such as carrots, green beans, mushrooms, beets, asparagus tips, acorn squash, and peeled zucchini
- Some desserts and snacks, such as Jell-O, popsicles, cakes, cookies, or sherbet
- Baked potatoes
In general, removing seeds and skins from these foods is best.
Use low-fat milk, cheese, or yogurt. If dairy products are making the diarrhea worse or causing gas and bloating, your child may need to stop eating or drinking dairy products for a few days.
Children should be allowed to take their time returning to their normal eating habits. For some children, a return to their regular diet can also bring a return of diarrhea. This is often due to mild problems the gut has while absorbing regular foods.
Children should avoid certain kinds of foods when they have diarrhea, including fried foods, greasy foods, processed or fast foods, pastries, donuts, and sausage.
Avoid giving children apple juice and full-strength fruit juices, as they can loosen stool.
Have your child limit or cut out milk and other dairy products if they are making diarrhea worse or causing gas and bloating.
Your child should avoid fruits and vegetables that can cause gas, such as broccoli, peppers, beans, peas, berries, prunes, chickpeas, green leafy vegetables, and corn.
Your child should also avoid caffeine and carbonated drinks at this time.
When children are ready for regular foods again, try giving them:
- Bananas
- Crackers
- Chicken
- Pasta
- Rice cereal
Call your child's provider if your child has any of these symptoms:
- Much less activity than normal (not sitting up at all or not looking around)
- Sunken eyes
- Dry and sticky mouth
- No tears when crying
- Not urinated for 6 hours
- Blood or mucus in the stool
- Fever that does not go away
- Stomach pain
Easter JS. Pediatric gastrointestinal disorders and dehydration. In: Bakes KM, Buchanan JA, Moreira ME, Byyny R, Pons PT, eds. Emergency Medicine Secrets. 7th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2022:chap 65.
Kotloff KL. Acute gastroenteritis in children. In: Kliegman RM, St. Geme JW, Blum NJ, Shah SS, Tasker RC, Wilson KM, eds. Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics.
21st ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2020:chap 366.
Schiller LR, Sellin JH. Diarrhea. In: Feldman M, Friedman LS, Brandt LJ, eds. Sleisenger and Fordtran's Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease. 11th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2021:chap 16.
Updated by: Neil K. Kaneshiro, MD, MHA, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, Brenda Conaway, Editorial Director, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.
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Children who have diarrhea may have less energy, dry eyes, or a dry, sticky mouth. They may also not wet their diaper as often as usual.
Give your child fluids for the first 4 to 6 hours. At first, try 1 ounce (2 tablespoons or 30 milliliters) of fluid every 30 to 60 minutes. You can use:
- An over-the-counter drink, such as Pedialyte or Infalyte -- do not water down these drinks
- Pedialyte frozen fruit pops
If you are nursing, keep breastfeeding your infant. If you are using formula, use it at one half strength for 2 to 3 feedings after the diarrhea starts. Then begin regular formula feedings again.
If your child throws up, give only a little bit of fluid at a time. You can start with as little as 1 teaspoon (5 ml) of fluid every 10 to 15 minutes.
When your child is ready for regular foods, try:
- Bananas
- Chicken
- Crackers
- Pasta
- Rice cereal
Avoid:
- Apple juice
- Dairy
- Fried foods
- Full-strength fruit juice
The BRAT diet was recommended by some health care providers in the past.
There is not a lot of evidence that it is better than a standard diet for upset stomach, but it probably can't hurt.
BRAT stands for the different foods that make up the diet:
- Bananas
- Rice cereal
- Applesauce
- Toast
Bananas and other solid foods are most often not recommended for a child who is actively vomiting.
WHEN TO CONTACT THE HEALTH CARE PROVIDER
Contact your child's provider if your child has any of these symptoms:
- Blood or mucus in the stool
- Dry and sticky mouth
- Fever that does not go away
- Much less activity than normal (is not sitting up at all or looking around)
- No tears when crying
- No urination for 6 hours
- Stomach pain
- Vomiting
When your infant has diarrhea; When your baby has diarrhea; BRAT diet; Diarrhea in children
- Bananas and nausea
Kotloff KL. Acute gastroenteritis in children. In: Kliegman RM, St. Geme JW, Blum NJ, Shah SS, Tasker RC, Wilson KM, eds.
Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics. 21st ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2020:chap 366.
Larson-Nath C, Gurram B, Chelimsky G. Disorders of digestion in the neonate. In: Martin RJ, Fanaroff AA, Walsh MC, eds. Fanaroff and Martin's Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine. 11th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2020:chap 83.
Nguyen T, Akhtar S. Gastroenteritis. In: Walls RM, Hockberger RS, Gausche-Hill M, eds. Rosen's Emergency Medicine: Concepts and Clinical Practice. 9th ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier; 2018:chap 84.
Updated by: Neil K. Kaneshiro, MD, MHA, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, Brenda Conaway, Editorial Director, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.
Diet for diarrhea in a 1-year-old child
When a child is sick, it is always a serious test for a family. Moreover, if the baby has vomiting, frequent loose stools, fever, he refuses to eat.
In such cases, parents naturally face the question: what to do?
The first thing to do is to see a doctor. In most cases, this condition is associated with an acute intestinal infection and can lead to serious consequences for the baby. And timely treatment allows you to quickly deal with the problem.
The second significant issue facing the parents of a sick child is the issue of proper nutrition. Unfortunately, you can still find recommendations to stop feeding a child during diarrhea, but this should not be done categorically.
Important!
It has been proven that "water-tea" breaks and starvation diets significantly weaken the protective functions of the child's body and lead to a delay in recovery processes in the intestines. Therefore, at present, most pediatricians insist on the mandatory continuation of the child's nutrition in case of acute intestinal infections, but with the obligatory consideration of the latest achievements in nutrition.
The main principles for managing the nutrition of a child with diarrhea should be:
| Phased | The development of the disease has a staging, each stage must correspond to certain approaches to diet therapy |
| Accounting for the age of the child | Each age should have its own products and its own schemes for their purpose |
| Accounting for the severity of the disease |
There are three main stages of diet therapy.
The first stage corresponds to the acute period of the disease, when the maximum manifestations of the disease are noted (vomiting, loose stools, fever), and the child may refuse his usual diet. During this period, proper nutrition is an integral part of treatment. And the success of treatment largely depends on the correct organization of diet therapy in a child.
The second stage is the recovery period. There are no longer those manifestations of the disease that were noted in the baby in the acute period, the child has an appetite, he becomes more active, but it must be remembered that any acute intestinal infection leads to significant changes in the child's body. This is a violation of the microflora of the gastrointestinal tract, and dysfunction of enzyme systems, bile secretion and other digestive processes. It takes time to restore the correct functioning of the gastrointestinal tract, which requires a sparing diet at this stage. Violation of the diet during this period can lead to the formation of a chronic pathology of the gastrointestinal tract.
The third stage of diet therapy is aimed at a gradual transition to the usual diet for this baby. Breastfed babies should continue to breastfeed. If the baby is bottle-fed, the doctor will prescribe a formula that matches the baby's condition. In children older than one year, it is necessary to exclude whole milk from the diet, they are also shown the appointment of fermented milk products as a diet therapy, the favorable properties of which are due to a number of positive qualities: the presence of lactic acid gives the product pronounced bactericidal properties and inhibits the growth of pathogenic microflora, the positive effect of these products on intestinal microbiocenosis, the secretory function of the digestive glands and intestinal motility, and they also have immunomodulatory properties.
One of the important components of diet therapy is the use of dairy-free cereals with pro- and synbiotics. Clinical studies have shown that the appointment of this diet therapy contributes to a more rapid relief of the main symptoms of intestinal dysfunction, as well as the restoration of intestinal microflora.
Choose foods for the diet
It is most correct to start with rice porridge, as it has pronounced sorption properties and helps to stop diarrhea. As the child recovers, oatmeal and buckwheat porridge can be included in the diet.
Vegetables and fruits are an important component in the first stage of diet therapy. Preference should be given to products that contain pectin (baked apple, boiled carrots), as they contribute to the sorption of pathogens and their toxins. At the first stage of diet therapy, the use of fresh vegetables and fruits, as well as juices, is not shown.
The second stage - the patient's condition improves, the child becomes active, appetite improves, and in some children it even becomes elevated, which is often perceived by parents as a signal for increased nutrition. It is absolutely impossible to do this, since the child's body has not yet recovered from the disease. During this period, it is necessary to continue eating sour-milk, lactose-free and low-lactose products.
An obligatory component of diet therapy is the use of nutrition with probiotics.
The third stage is the gradual expansion of the diet according to the age of the child. At this stage, the most justified is the widespread use of probiotic foods in order to restore and maintain the function of the gastrointestinal tract and its microbiocenosis.
What to feed a child with diarrhea at first?
- freshly cooked rice;
- bananas;
- natural apple juice;
- boiled potatoes;
- boiled chicken meat;
- crackers and stale bread;
- lean fish;
- weak tea.
What can you eat with diarrhea in a child and an adult | Diet for diarrhea
Co-author, editor and medical expert - Klimovich Elina Valerievna.
Number of views: 2 835 310
Date last updated: 10/26/2022
Average read time: 4 minutes0003 What can you eat if you have diarrhea? It is very important to adjust your diet and eating habits to help your body cope with the problem as effectively as possible. Top of page Top of page Drink at least a glass of fluid after each bout of diarrhea to prevent dehydration. In case of intestinal upset, drink water, weak tea, apple juice, low-fat broth. A liquid diarrhea diet does not burden the digestive tract with heavy work and helps prevent irritation. Back to Contents Try not to smoke or drink alcohol.
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