Traditional Chinese Medicine Parenting: Question 12 – What should be done when a child has diarrhea?

Traditional Chinese Medicine Parenting: Question 12 – What should be done when a child has diarrhea?

Answer: If you understand the principles of diagnosis discussed earlier, the same applies to diarrhea, which also requires distinguishing between cold diarrhea and heat diarrhea. Besides asking if the child is thirsty and whether they prefer warm or cold water, and observing the tongue coating, the appearance of the stool itself is the best indicator. Generally, cold diarrhea is caused by exposure to cold and manifests as undigested food in the stool that is not very foul-smelling. If the child's stool contains undigested food and isn't foul-smelling, it can be assumed that the child has caught a cold. In contrast, heat diarrhea is usually very foul-smelling.

Before discussing treatment methods, it's important for parents to understand that diarrhea is also a way for the body to expel harmful substances. For example, when a child eats something bad, the body detects the presence of unclean substances and tries to expel them through diarrhea. If you forcibly stop the diarrhea with Western anti-diarrheal medications, you are preventing the body from eliminating these harmful substances, which can lead to other health problems.

Treatment Methods:

• For cold diarrhea: Heat a large quantity of coarse salt in an iron pan, wrap it in cloth, and apply it as a warm compress on the child's navel. This will draw out the cold.

• For heat diarrhea: Use the following herbal decoction: 15 grams of Kudzu Root (Ge Gen), 5 grams of Coptis (Huang Lian), 5 grams of Scutellaria (Huang Qin), and 4 grams of roasted Licorice (Zhi Gan Cao). Boil these in four bowls of water until it reduces to one bowl. Divide the liquid into two doses and have the child drink it.

Additionally, here is an effective folk remedy for chronic diarrhea: cook millet porridge and give the child the thin layer of rice oil that forms on top to drink.