A 1-year-old baby should get three to six servings of food a day. But beyond that, you need to constantly drink water and drink at least 4 to 5 glasses of fluids. If you don’t, dehydration can begin within a few hours. That’s why pediatrician Clemencia Mayorga explains: The greatest blessing for children lost in the Amazon jungle was constant access to water, as well as the knowledge of older children.
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“Speaking of children’s physiology, an important part of survival is fluid intake. The lack of water for children puts them in a dangerous state very quickly, in just a few hours. This can be considered as having water all the time for 40 days. Rainwater or streams that must be of good quality and prevent a 1-year-old from becoming dehydrated within a few hours,” Mayorga emphasizes.
According to the former president of the Bogota Regional Colombian Association of Pediatrics, the reality is that even with constant access to water, children should probably be fed some vegetable diet that would help them get some of the energy they need to do tasks. extensive walks to which they are exposed.
According to the expert, knowledge of older children (Lesly, 13 years old and Soleiny, 9) was probably key at this point; According to Mayorga, he was strictly responsible for providing both things to the youngest (Tien, 4). and Cristin, who was only 11 months old when the accident happened).
“It seems very important to me to highlight the ability of two older children to care for younger children. It is clear to me that it is the older children who save the lives of young children, and especially 11-month-olds.”, emphasizes the expert.
Mayorga emphasizes that what is clear from the photos that have emerged is that children are in a state of severe malnutrition, possibly due to a lack of access to protein.
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“I believe there is prior and important information that allows them to be maintained with a minimum caloric intake. Now when we look at images of children in recent photographs, it is clear that they have a high degree of malnutrition. Of course, acute malnutrition adds to chronic malnutrition, and it’s an important health warning. But anyway. that finding them alive enables a healthy eating process to be carried out in the coming days”, emphasizes the doctor.
In this sense, Mayorga points out that even under the seriousness of the truth and the underage of the children: access to water and the older children’s possible knowledge of plants that could be consumed in the forest were key to keeping them alive in the most extreme conditions possible.
“The younger a child is, the less likely it is to survive without water, without fluids, and without nutritional supplements. So the younger the child, the less chance of survival. So I insist on two points in the field of speculation: these children probably always had access to water, and the knowledge of the elders as indigenous children gave them the possibility of providing some nutritional contribution. As I told you: an 11-month-old child without fluid intake is at risk of death within two days, ”concludes the expert.
EDWIN CAICEDO | HEALTH UNIT
Source: Exame
