Dehydration facts for kids

Dehydration means your body doesn't have enough water. The word comes from an old Greek word for water, hydor.

Your body needs water to work properly. You get dehydrated when you lose more water than you drink. If you get very dehydrated, your body can't work the right way. This can cause damage to your organs and can even be very dangerous.

What Makes You Dehydrated?

You can get dehydrated if your body loses water and you don't drink enough to replace it. Here are some common reasons why people get dehydrated:

• Sweating a lot (like when it's hot or you exercise)
• Having bad diarrhea
• Vomiting (throwing up)
• Urinating more than usual (this can happen if you have uncontrolled diabetes or take certain medicines)
• Having a Fever

Who Gets Dehydrated Easily?

Anyone can get dehydrated. But some people are more likely to get dehydrated than others. This means they get dehydrated more easily. Older people, very young children, and people with long-term illnesses are at the highest risk.

What Are the Signs of Dehydration?

The symptoms of dehydration can be different depending on how much water your body has lost. If dehydration isn't treated, it will get worse. As it gets worse, the symptoms become more serious.

When you first start to get dehydrated, you might notice these signs:

• Feeling thirsty
• Having a dry, sticky mouth
• Feeling tired or sleepy
• Not urinating as much as usual
• Dry skin
• A Headache
• Constipation
• Feeling dizzy or lightheaded
• Not having tears when you cry

When dehydration becomes severe (very bad), the symptoms are more serious. These include:

• Being extremely thirsty
• Feeling annoyed or confused (babies and children might be very fussy or sleepy)
• Having a very dry mouth and other moist areas of the body
• Dry skin that doesn't bounce back when you gently pinch it
• Urinating very little, with dark urine, or not at all
• Sunken eyes
• In babies, the soft spot on their head (fontanel) might look sunken
• Low blood pressure (you might feel dizzy when you stand up quickly)
• A fast heartbeat
• Fast breathing
• Fever
• In the most serious cases, confusion or even losing consciousness

Severe dehydration is a medical emergency. If someone with severe dehydration doesn't get medical help quickly, it can be very dangerous.

What Problems Can Dehydration Cause?

Serious dehydration can lead to big health problems. Here are some of them:

• Heat injury. When it's very hot or you're exercising a lot, fluids like water help keep your body cool. If you're dehydrated, your body can overheat. This can cause heat injury. Mild heat injury is called heat cramps (muscle pain). If it gets worse, it becomes heat exhaustion. If your body keeps overheating, it can turn into heat stroke, which is a very serious emergency. Heat stroke can damage your organs and even be deadly without quick treatment.
• Swelling of the brain. Sometimes, your body tries to fix dehydration by pulling too much water into its cells. If this happens to brain cells, your brain can swell.
• Seizures. When you're dehydrated, your electrolytes can get out of balance. Electrolytes are important salts in your body that help carry electrical signals. When electrolytes like sodium and potassium are out of balance, your body's electrical signals can get mixed up, which can cause seizures.
• Shock. Water is a big part of your blood. Most of your blood plasma (the liquid part of blood) is water. If you get very dehydrated, the amount of blood in your body drops, causing low blood pressure. If your body doesn't have enough blood and oxygen, you can go into shock. This is called hypovolemic shock.
• Kidney failure. Bad dehydration can hurt your kidneys. When your kidneys are damaged or not working well, they can't remove harmful substances and extra fluid from your blood.

How Is Dehydration Treated?

To fix dehydration, you need to replace the fluids and electrolytes you've lost.

If your dehydration isn't too bad, you can usually treat it yourself by drinking. This is called oral rehydration therapy. Stores sell special drinks like Pedialyte and Gatorade, which have both water and electrolytes. You can also make your own rehydration drink by mixing water with sugar and salt.

People with very bad dehydration need emergency medical treatment. They might need to get fluids through a needle placed into a vein (this is called intravenously). This replaces lost fluids and electrolytes much faster than drinking. It's also helpful for people who can't drink because they feel sick or are vomiting from dehydration.

See also

In Spanish: Deshidratación para niños