Water Intoxication
- 1 September 1991
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Medical Association (AMA) in American Journal of Diseases of Children
- Vol. 145 (9) , 981-982
- https://doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.1991.02160090033016
Abstract
The article in this issue ofAJDCby Keating et al1from St Louis, Mo, adds to our warning in 1986 that the incidence of water intoxication in infants has risen during the last 15 years.2Four additional issues not extensively addressed by Keating et al are worth comment. First, why has there been a sharp increase in the number of patients with water intoxication? Families living in poverty have diluted formulas and fed water to hungry infants as long as any of us can remember, yet before about 1970 we clinicians working in inner-city hospitals rarely encountered water intoxication as a result. On the contrary, we encountered a high incidence of hypernatremic dehydration between 1945 and 1970.3I believe the most important factor in bringing about this reversal was the deliberate reduction in the salt (and other "renal solute") content of infantKeywords
This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- Too Little Water Has Become Too MuchAmerican Journal of Diseases of Children, 1986