Stopping child diarrhea.

Below is a method to overcome diarrhea. It came to me from a friend through my email. Since Emeritus Professor Wong Hock Boon who passed away on 28 December 2008 was one of the most prominent pediatrician in Singapore and the method comes from him, it certainly deserves our attention. Furthermore, he was well recognised internationally as an outstanding pediatrician.

However, I wish to inform that Professor Wong was a pediatrician and had treated children and babies with diarrhea. There was no mention of the treatment for adults although I believe there should be no harm as in diarrhea for adults, re-hydration is the most important step in countering the problem and rice water certainly contains lots of liquids.

In 1980, Professor Wong was awarded the Guinness Award for Scientific Achievement, and in 1985 the “most outstanding pediatrician Asia” award from APPSEAR (Association of Pediatric Societies of the South East Asian Region).

Emeritus Professor Wong has tackle childhood malnutrition and infantile diarrhoeal diseases vigorously through the promotion of breastfeeding, aiming to improve the health status of children in the region.

The use of rice-water for oral re-hydration in the management of acute gastroenteritis was pioneered by Professor Wong, and this led to a new and highly cost-effective approach to diarrhea diseases in the developing world.

Although re-hydration is the most immediate and vital aspect of the management of diarrhea, the giving of energy in some form of food is necessary. Many people think it is necessary to starve children with diarrhoea and merely give them water. This is dangerous as starving can start off malnutrition, or worsen it, by weakening the affected child's immunity.

Professor Wong Hock Boon has been using rice water to rehydrate babies for several years. If the babies are bottle-fed, rice water is given exclusively for the first 24 hours of treatment while breastfeeding can continue as normal. Professor Wong have found that many babies who have not responded to other rehydration solutions respond well to rice water. If diarrhea starts again with the re-introduction of milk, extra rice water is given with additional rice porridge. Older babies are sometimes given only rice porridge.

According to research, starch-like sugars tend to draw less fluid out of the body and into the gut compared with a similar amount of simple sugar such as glucose. Some babies with diarrhea can digest starch more easily than simple sugars.

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QUICKEST WAY TO STOP CHILD DIARRHEA
by: A Singaporean
When someone gets diarrhea, sometimes the solution is so easy, we wonder why anyone has to suffer.

Of all the ingredients here, the most potent is Rice, but not in the usual form we eat it in, and neither would rice porridge work too well.

The secret is in rice water.

Mother boiled some rice in lots of water and went to their hotel with two 1.5L bottles of rice water. To my surprise, it worked, and they were even able to go out for dinner the next day. Both were exclaiming how the rice water did the trick of making them well again.

I was discussing this some years back with Kim Ng, the ex-matron of KK Hospital. She said, yes, that is what Professor Wong Hock Boon, the notable pediatrician teaches. I was shocked and made some comment how could he? It was common knowledge so what had he to do with it?

Many months later, I regretted laughing at it. Dr Christina Shanta Emmanuel, who is the CEO of which group I have forgotten, either National Health Group or Polyclinics, regarded me seriously when I brought up the topic like it was good fun. She said that Prof Wong Hock Boon had presented a paper on it at some conference after he had done clinical trials.

Then his results were published in the Lancet, the Medical Journal all doctors read. In fact, said Shanta, he was credited for saving the lives of 2 million African babies by this method.

I am impressed.

It is rice water and not rice, that does the trick. I have found it effective again and again.

THE EXACT RECIPE

You take a handful of rice and boil it in a large saucepan with lots of water.
Like three or four large glasses. Then you cool that and drink the water.
If you are in a hurry to relieve the ailing person, take the saucepan off the fire and dunk it in a frying pan or basin of cool water with ice cubes if necessary. This gives the patient a chance to drink the rice water sooner and cure himself or herself sooner.

When drinking the rice water, make sure there is lots of it. You have to tell the patient that enough water must go in to line your guts from throat to other end, all 10 to 12 metres of it. If you take rice, it stays in the stomach.
If you take broth, some of it may go into the small intestine.
But if you take rice water, it will carry rice grains to every inch of your small and large intestine to the end where the problem is.

How does it work? Even Prof Wong Hock Boon doesn't know. Read the article by going to this site:
http://rehydrate.org/dd/dd06.htm#page2

It is good to pass on the news to everyone you know because the complaint is so common and people suffer unnecessarily. You would be doing your friends a great favour to relieve them of their misery when the occasion arises.