When a child is poisoned, parents should know how to quickly and effectively come to his aid. The most common is food poisoning. It is caused by the use of low-quality products containing toxins or pathogens. Products may be of animal or vegetable origin. For example, mushrooms, poisonous plants, spoiled food. This article will discuss the causes, symptoms of departure, as well as the treatment of this disease, first aid methods.
Features
When a child is poisoned, you need to clearly follow a certain algorithm in order to provide timely and effective assistance. Food poisoning is usually triggered by an intestinal infection. It includes a large group of diseases caused by viruses and bacteria. More often than others, there are infections such as salmonellosis, dysentery, campylobacteriosis, escherichiosis, yersiniosis. Intestinalinfections affect patients regardless of age. Often one has to deal with the fact that a small child has been poisoned.
In most cases, in children, the departure can be caused by poisonous mushrooms, which retain dangerous properties even after all kinds of processing methods. In addition, poisonous plants provoke intoxication, some even when in contact with them or their juice.
Reasons
It is important to always know what to do if a child is poisoned. In this case, you need to understand what caused the intestinal infection. Children often fall victim to the so-called "dirty hand disease". The easiest way to catch this infection is through dirty objects or hands.
The disease caused by Escherichia coli called Escherichia appears due to fermented milk products - yogurt, kefir. Staphylococci are actively spread in the warm season in cakes and creams, which can also lead to food infection.
Salmonellosis pathogens enter the human body through contaminated food. Most often, these are dirty greens or vegetables, eggs, chicken meat, sausages, boiled sausage. Yersinia is spread by rodents that could run over fruits and vegetables, and then a person did not wash them thoroughly and became infected..
How does the infection spread?
To understand what to do if a child is poisoned, you need to understand what processes are taking place. As soon as the pathogen enters the body, it begins to release toxins into differentsections of the gastrointestinal tract. Intoxication begins, which is accompanied by an inflammatory process in the intestines. Severe vomiting and loose stools cause dehydration.
The very first symptom when a child is poisoned is abdominal pain, profuse vomiting, loose stools mixed with greenery, mucus, and blood streaks may appear. Vomiting precedes or is accompanied by an increase in body temperature. Children have a hard time enduring this condition, as their body is much weaker than that of adults. Therefore, parents need to know how to behave if the child is poisoned and vomiting does not give him rest. At the same time, minors develop weakness, lethargy, headache. They absolutely refuse to eat. All these symptoms are caused by the negative impact of microbes on tissues and organs.
Mushroom poisoning
You should be especially wary if the child is poisoned and vomits, and the reason for this is poisonous mushrooms. It is believed that eating pale grebe is the most difficult to tolerate. The phalloidin contained in it penetrates the circulatory system, begins to dissolve and destroy red blood cells. Poisoning in this case can be fatal. A lethal dose of poison is contained in only a quarter of the cap of the pale grebe.
Another dangerous mushroom is fly agaric. It contains toxins called muscaridine and muscarine. The effect of these poisons occurs in a period of 30 minutes to ten hours, so it is not always possible to quickly figure out what was the true cause of the painful condition.
In some cases, provoke foodpoisoning in children and adults can be edible or conditionally edible mushrooms when the conditions for their preparation are violated. Do not eat stale or old ones, they may contain poisonous protein breakdown products.
If you preserve mushrooms yourself at home, it can cause such a serious illness as botulism. Its pathogens come from the soil and then develop in the absence of oxygen in sealed jars, leading to the formation of a strong and toxic poison.
Diagnosis
If a child has poisoned himself with vomiting, the doctor will tell you what to do. To do this, he will need to make an accurate diagnosis based on the overall clinical picture. In some cases, additional laboratory tests may be needed to establish the causative agent of the disease. To do this, take a blood test, feces, vomit.
In most cases, the first symptoms of departure appear up to 40 hours after contact with the pathogen. It all starts with dizziness, headache. If this is mushroom poisoning, then there is a feeling of unconscious anxiety. A little later, the clinical picture is supplemented by diarrhea, abdominal pain and convulsions. In severe cases, this condition is accompanied by a rare pulse, cold sweat.
If a child is poisoned by fly agaric, vomiting, nausea, thirst, weakness and profuse sweating appear. In some cases, hallucinations, delirium, shortness of breath, rare pulse are possible.
With botulism, dizziness and headache appear, vision drops, a feeling of dryness appears inmouth. Visual perception is an important symptom by which you can immediately understand that the reason for administration is botulinum toxin. The patient begins to see double, everything is clouded with fog, the reaction of the pupils to light becomes very weak, the eyelids are constantly lowered, while movements are difficult, the gait is uncertain. It is noteworthy that this maintains normal body temperature.
Treatment
Therapy should be started as soon as you detect signs of an eating disorder in your child. In parallel, call the doctor at home. Only a doctor can decide whether home treatment is possible or the baby needs urgent hospitalization.
Most importantly, before the doctor arrives, compensate for the s alt and fluid that have been lost during this time by the body. To do this, give the baby water. Drinking should be fractional and private - one teaspoon or tablespoon every five to ten minutes. It is best to give the child a fruit drink, compote, a five percent glucose solution, tea or a saline-glucose solution of Regidron.
As soon as diarrhea starts, use enterosorbents. These can be drugs "Polifepan", "Smecta", "Microsorb". When you find greens, blood or mucus in the patient's stool, be sure to inform the doctor about this, then the patient will be prescribed antibiotics.
If the doctor decides to keep the baby at home, use a sparing diet when the baby is better and wants to eat. In most situations, it is recommended to give kefir for the first time after poisoning,rice porridge on the water, crackers, mashed potatoes without butter and milk, mashed vegetarian soups. As a dessert, you can offer a baked apple. You need to eat little, but often, at short intervals.
In case of mushroom poisoning, an ambulance is indispensable. In extreme cases, take the child to the nearest hospital yourself. Botulism is treated only in the infectious department. As a therapy, the patient will be injected with anti-botulinum serum, which effectively neutralizes toxins.
When poisoned by plant poison, the poison that has entered the body should be eliminated or its toxicity reduced with the help of an antidote. It is important to take all possible first aid measures for the child before the doctor arrives.
In any case, no matter what caused the poisoning, you need to induce vomiting so that the body gets rid of harmful toxins. This should be done by irritating the root of the tongue or throat.
Help baby
Especially dangerous is the state when the child was poisoned in the year. At this age, the baby cannot tell anything about the symptoms, so parents can only guess what exactly hurts him.
If a patient who has been poisoned is an infant who is artificially or breastfed, at the first symptoms you need to pause in feeding, start drinking plenty of boiled water.
If the condition improves after some time, you can return to your usual diet.
You should change the diet if the child was poisoned in the year. What to do, tell the pediatrician. ATIn most cases, after a pause of about eight hours, it is recommended that the baby be given fermented milk mixtures, to which rice water can be added. The rest of the complementary foods that you introduced earlier can only be returned on the third day. It is important not to include anything new in his diet until he is fully recovered. The menu should contain only products already familiar to the body.
First aid for poisoning
The danger is poisoning by toxic substances that can enter the child's body through the respiratory tract, digestive system or skin.
Poisonous substances experts divide into three categories. The first class includes the most dangerous compounds. These are mushrooms, plants, industrial poisons, household chemicals, agricultural preparations, animal poisons and toxic gases.
Dangerous compounds fall into the second class - alcohol, medicinal substances, conditionally edible mushrooms and plants.
In the third class, conditionally hazardous compounds, including edible mushrooms, non-poisonous plants that become toxic when grown on land contaminated with waste, if not properly treated with pesticides.
Abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea are not the only signs of poisoning. Symptoms depend on the toxic substance that provoked intoxication. If vomiting appeared, the child was poisoned, what should I do? Every parent should know this.
The first step is to call an ambulance. Remember that the emergency service must respond to a call to any patient onterritory of Russia, regardless of whether he has a medical insurance policy or other documents. When you call 911, you may be connected to a poison control center where you can get the advice you need.
It's not an easy situation when a child gets poisoned at home. What to do first? It is necessary to ensure a comfortable position, it is desirable to put to bed, to be constantly nearby until the team of doctors arrives.
If your baby is vomiting, sit him or lay him down with his head on your lap. When it is not known what toxic substance is the causative agent of the disease, vomit may help to make a diagnosis. Therefore, using a basin would be preferable to using a toilet.
If the child is unconscious, they should be placed on their side. If possible, clean your mouth from vomit with your finger, wrapping it in a handkerchief. Make sure that vomiting does not interfere with breathing.
Even before the doctors arrive, try to determine the cause of the poisoning yourself. When the child is conscious, ask what he ate, examine his face, body and clothing for specific odors, redness, stains.
Keep a close eye on the baby, noting everything that happens to him. This will also help determine the cause of the poisoning. Do not self-medicate until the doctor arrives. If there is no ambulance for a long time, consult a pediatrician or a toxicologist what to do next.
Many toxic substances have antidotes that neutralize the negative effect. They can be ethyl alcohol or vegetable oil, which can be found at home.
Chemical poisoning
If a child has poisoned himself with chemicals, it is strictly forbidden to induce vomiting through the esophagus. Repeated exposure to hazardous liquids can cause additional tissue burns and make breathing difficult.
In case of poisoning with alkalis and acids, children are first of all given to drink vegetable oil. The amount depends on age: up to three years - one teaspoon, up to seven years - dessert, and after seven - a tablespoon.
If a child has been poisoned by household chemicals that have penetrated the skin, you need to remove clothing contaminated with a toxic substance. Wash the affected areas with soapy water and warm water afterwards. Wash your entire body if possible.
Prevention
Like any disease state, poisoning is preventable in most cases. Prevention is the observance of elementary rules of hygiene. Be sure to wash your hands after using the toilet and before eating. Thoroughly rinse fruits and vegetables with boiling water, store cooked dishes in the refrigerator for no more than two days, boil milk, especially if you give it to a child. Avoid buying groceries in dubious stores, visiting fast food cafes.
In warm and hot weather, it is better not to cook for future use at all. Exercise caution when swimming in water bodies. The causative agents of some intestinal infections can remain there for up to 50 days. If a child has been ill with dysentery, he remains a carrier of the disease for a month. All this time, he must not be allowed to contact other children.
Prevention of poisoningvegetable poisons should consist in the implementation of certain rules. Small children should not be allowed to pick mushrooms and berries on their own. Until the age of five, it is generally better not to give mushrooms, since the child's body does not have enough enzymes to digest them. In this case, the probability of poisoning is very high.
