Infants do not have dysentery —Expert

CONTRARY to the thinking of many people, a medical expert, Dr Dare Olulana, has said that infants do not have dysentery even when they are passing out bloody mucus stool.

Dr Olulana, a consultant paediatric surgeon, spoke at the Nigerian Medical Association Oyo State chapter’s January 2020 Continuing Medical Education series entitled ‘They  must Know of common paediatric surgical emergencies’.

Olulana said that infants have no reason to have dysentery since they do not feed on adult foods, including meat, and as such a case of bloody mucus stool will not be resolved with the use of antibiotics.

He stated that in infants, the passage of bloody mucus stool may be suggestive of intussusception, a medical emergency involving obstruction of the intestine that can be fatal if not treated.

Dr Olulana said that intussusception affects children under two years and its symptoms include sudden, loud crying that comes and goes away every 15 to 20 minutes, vomiting, intermittent cramp, and stool mixed with blood and mucus.

According to him, when intussusception occurs, the flow of fluids and food through the bowel can get blocked, the intestine can swell and bleed and the blood supply to the affected part of the intestine can get cut off and eventually, part of the bowel can die.

The paediatric surgeon said most of the time, doctors don’t know what causes intussusception but in some cases, it might follow a recent diarrheal illness.

Dr Olulana said, “the answer is not the use of antibiotics; the answer is to do surgery.”

The paediatric surgeon also warned that jaundice is not cured with glucose and amplicox.

According to him, “we see that all the time, it is another allopathic medicine, a system of medical practice which treats disease by the use of remedies which produce effects different from those produced by the disease under treatment.”

Dr Olulana said that it is common for premature babies to develop jaundice, a yellow tint to the skin or eyes caused by an excess of bilirubin, a substance created when red blood cells break.

He said that high levels of bilirubin, if left untreated, can lead to brain damage, cerebral palsy, hearing loss, and even death, adding a case of jaundice lasting for over two  weeks be referred to where paediatric surgeons are so that they can be appropriately treated.

The medical expert, however, said infants too sometimes also require emergency surgical treatment for some ailments, adding that generally surgeries in infants have peculiar challenges such as poor body temperature control, bleeding risk, immature immune system and immature kidney function.

Chairman of the occasion, Dr Willlams Akanji, stated that some of these surgical emergencies in children, if not repaired promptly, could affect their growth, including fertility in the future.

According to him, “if medical doctors are able to identify such cases, we will be able to refer them appropriately to where they can get help”.