Oral Rehydration Corner

                Yesterday's clinic experience was a veritable parade of mamas making wonderful choices for their children.We had mamas bringing their kids in for follow up appointments (more a of a rarity than we would like), mamas advocating for their babies' needs and mamas working with us to help rehydrate their sick toddlers. I was fairly dancing by the time clinic ended, a rarity for Monday.

One of the things I see fairly often in the clinic is children under five years old with diarrhea, a major worldwide killer. We have implemented a set of protocols for treating these children that follow WHO recommendations. Part of these procedures involves keeping children with some dehydration in the clinic for a couple of hours, to orally rehydrate them, and assess whether they are stable to go home. This procedure gives us (hopefully) a four hour window with these children and their caretakers, a great opportunity to chat and teach. At least that's the theory. In practice it is difficult to convince caretakers to stay for the entire time and I am often left giving instructions for home care, a much less preferred option. We had a little girl in the clinic yesterday who fit the criteria for some dehydration and I asked her mama to stay with us for a bit, so we could give her daughter the fluids she needed. The mama, to my very great delight, agreed.

 In an effort to keep little ones from going stir crazy in the clinic, and to encourage the caretakers to stay for rehydration therapy, I keep some educational activities around for them. Yesterday I shared a coloring book and a book with the alphabet in it with the mom and her daughter. After explaining what I needed from the mom, as far as giving her daughter frequent sips of fluid, I left them to themselves to see my next patient. Within a few minutes, I heard the mom singing the ABCs with her daughter and her daughter trying to sing along. This continued off and on for the better part of an hour, interspersed with drink breaks, where the mom managed to turn getting the needed fluid to her child into a game that keep the little girl drinking plenty and often, exactly as we like it for dehydrated toddlers.. 

I'm not sure if I can express strongly enough how beautiful the whole thing was to watch. This mom who had been desperately worried about her daughter, singing and playing with her just a few minutes later.The little girl who came to the clinic droopy and left with a bounce in her step. Some of their friends who were in the clinic line, who celebrated with the mom over her daughter starting to look better. I was left marveling again at the beauty and strength in this incredible country.