Vomiting in children is a common phenomenon. Children do vomit for many reasons like indigestion, overfeeding, excessive crying, positional, mild illness, fever. It may not be a sign of serious disease but should be taken cautiously as persistent vomiting in children can cause severe dehydration which can be life threating, it may put the child risk of aspiration and pneumonia. It can be a sign of brain fever or intestinal obstruction
If your child is vomiting
- Do not feed the child milk or any food immediately after the vomiting
- Give the child small amount of ORS every 15-20 minutes Breast feeding also can be given the small amounts
- If the child vomits again, you can give anti vomiting medicine like Ondansetron
- After giving the medicines wait for 20-30 minutes and then feed the child small amount of liquid feeds (not milk)
- Once the child starts accepting feeds, slowly increase the amount of liquid feeds and then solid feeds if there is no vomiting
- Liquid feeds that can be used can be ORS, Electral powder, lemon and sugar water, coconut water, breast feeds
- But if the child continues to vomit for 3-4 hours and the child appears dull lethargic or has high fever it’s better to take the child to the emergency at a nearby hospital.