Pros And Cons Of Dehydration

If a child has been admitted to hospital due to dehydration they are already in an extremely vulnerable position, they are at risk or deteriorating and suffer worsening health. At this stage it is the duty of the nurse to be an advocate for the patient (Choi, 2014). Copp (1986) stated that when a person becomes vulnerable they require assistance to represent themselves and their needs, it is the duty of the nurse to represent these vulnerable patients and act on their behalf ensuring their needs are met and with the nurses’ knowledge they can assist the patient and their family in becoming less vulnerable (Copp,1986). This is done by educating parents and care givers regarding prevention of dehydration and the signs to look out for, in order

Jablonski (2012) explained that dehydration is often overlooked with infants and young children since they are unable to communicate their needs, it can be missed by parents, care givers and healthcare professionals, with symptoms of dehydration mimicking those of other serious illnesses such as decreased urine output, low capillary refill and increased heart rate (shepherd, 2011). The urgency to rule out life threating illnesses can force healthcare professionals to overlook dehydration as the cause of ill health (Jablonski, 2012). If dehydration is missed this can lead to serious health issues such as hypovolaemic shock, organ failure and even fatalities (Koyfman, 2017). Evidence shows that main causes of fatalities from dehydration stem from other existing factors such as gastroenteritis, failure to thrive/neglect and environmental factors such as abnormally high environmental temperatures (Whitehead, Couper, Moore and Byard, 1996) thus showing that children are extremely vulnerable to the physical harm of dehydration and this should not be

Hydration levels can be monitored closely to reduce their vulnerability of becoming dehydrated (Shepherd, 2011). Water, cow’s milk, infant formula and juice is readily available for children and infants on the ward to maintain hydration levels and encourage drinking and parents are advised of this as per the guidelines of The Hospital Food Standards (Jeffrey, 2015) in order to reduce patient vulnerability. Healthcare professionals closely monitor fluid balance and look out for dehydration signs in the child, it sometimes becomes necessary to prevent dehydration from escalating and to intervene by placing some young children and infants on intravenous rehydration, this is a quick way of rehydrating a child who is moderately to severely dehydrated in order to prevent their condition from deteriorating further leaving young children and infants vulnerable to health complications such as organ failure (Ellis, 2016). An important part of reducing the child’s vulnerability is the education offered to parents and care givers since they are highly dependent on them for all aspects of care, health and wellbeing. There are many public information campaigns which parents are informed about regarding