DIY Pedialyte!

Homemade Pedialyte

Replacing fluid loss when your baby or child is experiencing severe episodes of vomiting or diarrhea is critical to the wellbeing of your child.

Making your own homemade Pedialyte, can help you prevent Hypovolemic shock, a critical condition which can occur with the loss of too much fluid from the body.

Forceful vomiting and excessive diarrhea can cause a small child to lose fluid quickly, so its vital to the health of your child for you replace fluid with an electrolyte solution.

How do you best replace fluid loss?

Using homemade Pedialyte, 30ml every hour, about two tablespoons is enough fluid to keep an infant or small child hydrated.

Most importantly, feeding in small amounts of only 5 ml or so, will allow inflamed intestinal walls to absorb fluids and prevent the child from vomiting after taking in fluids.

Our natural response to thirst is to gulp down large volume of fluid, however endotoxins released by culprit bacteria or viruses cause such severe inflammation to the intestinal lining, that tissues cannot absorb fluids and they will quickly come back up telling us that absorption can only happen in small amounts.

Learn the signs of severe dehydration.

Fluid loss must be replaced after every episode of vomiting or stool loss to maintain blood volume and subsequently, blood pressure.

A drop in blood pressure will increase heart rate as the heart pumps faster to keep low fluid volume circulating around.

Positive indicators of severe dehydration include:

• Face flushing,

• fast heart rate and

• dry, cracked lips

These symptoms indicate the serious need to replace fluid volume with homemade pedialyte.

“Which medicine has saved more lives than any other and can be made by anyone in their kitchen, back bedroom, shantytown hut or dwelling built of sticks – as long as they have access to clean water?

The answer is:  six teaspoons of sugar, half a teaspoon of salt and one litre of water.

Mix.  Drink……

Oral rehydration fluid, called ORS for short, is easy to make, has readily available ingredients and is all one needs to rehydrate during acute episodes of vomiting and diarrhea.

2 tablespoons ORS/hour

Encourage breast feeding on demand, for infants and salted broth soups or young coconut water for adults and older children, as well as homemade pedialyte.

How to preparing One (1) Litre Oral Rehydration Solution [ORS] using Salt, Sugar and Water at Home

Place 6 level teaspoons of sugar and
a half level teaspoon of salt
into one litre of clean drinking water (or boiled water and then cooled)
– 1 litre = 5 cupfuls (each cup about 200 ml.)

Feed with a spoon frequently

Be very careful to mix the correct amounts. Too much sugar can make the diarrhea worse, and too much salt can be extremely harmful.

If the mixture is made a little too diluted no harm can be done and there is very little loss of effectiveness. Encourage the child to drink small amounts.

A child under the age of two needs at least a 1/4r to a 1/2 of a large cup of the drink after each watery stool given slowly with a spoon.

A child older than two needs at least a 1/2 to a 1 large cup of drink after each watery stool.

Diarrhea usually stops in three or four days. The real danger is the loss of liquid and nutrients from the child’s body, which can cause dehydration and malnutrition.

This recommendation is from the World Health Organization website. It does not substitute for medical care and is presented here as public health education.

Please find the nearest emergency room and take your child there if he or she becomes unresponsive.