Samuel Ademola Adegoke
A case series of seven children with Kwashiorkor who presented, to our facility in the Wesley Guild Hospital, Ilesa (a unit of Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital Complex, Ile-Ife), with persistent diarrhoea and were managed with milk given as continuous drip via a nasogastric tube during the stabilisation and re-feeding phase are reported. In addition to milk drip, the patients were also given Vitamin A, zinc, copper, potassium supplement, folic acid, multivitamins as well as bactericidal antibiotics. Their pedal oedema and loss of appetite resolved within one week after commencement of the drips; after which they were commenced on thickened cereal and locally available food. All of them made uneventful recovery except for case 3 whose kwashiorkor was complicated by meningitis but she recovered with neurological sequelae. From this preliminary report, it could be inferred that milk drip would be ideal for initiating feeding after resuscitating a patient with kwashiorkor.
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