Vomiting

My baby has rotavirus and isn’t keeping anything down. What did you do for this?

Our Mommy MD Guide’s reply:  My older son got rotavirus just before his first birthday. My husband and I worked diligently to make sure he was well hydrated. We made sure he got  5 cc (1 tsp) of fluids every few minutes, using a syringe. But it would all come up anyway. We watched him carefully for signs of dehydration. For example, we watched to make sure he was peeing at least three times in 24 hours and that his mouth wasn’t too dry, and he was making tears.

My husband and I hoped so much our son would be better by his birthday. He was, but meanwhile my parents had caught his rotavirus, and so they missed his party.

—Leena Shrivastava Dev, MD, a mom of 14- and 10-year-old sons, an assistant professor of medicine at the Drexel University College of Medicine, and a general pediatrician, in Philadelphia