What should I do if my child has intestinal spasms? How should I treat it?

Up to now, there are already a lot of patients suffering from intestinal spasms, and more and more people are troubled by intestinal spasms. Intestinal spasm is the most common type of acute abdominal pain among pediatric diseases. Most of them are caused by improper diet or failure to pay attention to regulating the body in life. Generally, when intestinal spasm occurs, there are usually acute abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting symptoms. If the disease is delayed and not treated in time, it will cause intestinal perforation in patients. The following is a detailed introduction to the pathology of intestinal spasm. We need to understand it in detail.

Treatment decisions can be made based on the intestinal spasm scoring results. The scores are based on the intensity and duration of the crying, the symptoms associated with the crying, and the parents' views on their children's crying. If the crying and noise are related to intestinal spasm, but the crying and noise are not severe, use the first and second level treatment plans; if it is severe intestinal spasm, use the third level treatment.

1. The first level of treatment is to comfort the child, rock the child, reduce environmental noise, cover the baby's abdomen with a hot water bottle; give support and care to the parents; and take Chinese medicine or dimethyl silicone oil. Some Chinese medicines have antispasmodic effects. After taking Chinese medicine (a powder composed of chamomile, verbena, licorice, fennel, vanilla and mint) for 7 days, intestinal spasms improved, but the number of night awakenings did not decrease. Dimethicone is a non-absorbable drug that changes the surface tension of bubbles, causing them to merge or diffuse, thereby promoting gas discharge and has no side effects on the human body. Tried using it to reduce intestinal gas. But the research results on it are inconsistent. In a crossover study using dimethicone versus placebo, symptoms improved in 1/4-2/3 of the children, but there was no significant difference compared with placebo. Other drugs that reduce intestinal gas, such as activated carbon and α-galactosidase, can absorb gas or help digest high-fiber foods and reduce fermentation gas production, but their effectiveness in treating intestinal spasm is currently uncertain.

2. The second level of treatment is drug treatment. Available antispasmodics (such as cimetropium bromide) can block the muscarinic receptors of smooth muscle and can also act directly on smooth muscle to relieve smooth muscle spasm. If the effect is ineffective, dicyclomine hydrochloride can be used. As an anticholine drug, it has an atropine-like antispasmodic effect and a certain central nervous system sedative effect. It is effective in treating infantile intestinal spasms. However, recent studies have found that infants under 6 months old may suffer from sleep apnea when using this drug, which limits the application of this drug. There is still no completely effective drug to treat intestinal spasms.

Third, tertiary treatment involves changes in diet and/or medication. Breastfeeding mothers do not consume milk, dairy products, fish and eggs; giving bottle-fed babies soy milk or hydrolyzed casein formula can significantly improve infant intestinal spasms. For patients with intestinal spasms caused by CMPI, symptoms improved in 71%-88% of children after removing cow's milk protein and replacing it with soy milk or hydrolyzed protein. Because drug treatments (such as dicyclomine hydrochloride) have certain side effects and are sometimes not effective, dietary changes may be more appropriate than drug treatments.