[Nutritional management of acute infectious diarrhea of mild and moderate intensity]

In childhood, acute infectious diarrhea remains one of the most important causes of mortality (due to dehydration) and morbidity (due to malnutrition). Whilst, the introduction of solutions for oral rehydration have meant a therapeutic advance of extraordinary importance to meet the objective of avoiding or correcting the dehydration, the nutritional management of the child with acute diarrhea remains a subject of great controversy. Evidence that suggests that the mild or moderate forms of the illness do not cause functional or anatomic alterations in the gastrointestinal apparatus of the severity or duration described in the more severe forms of diarrhea, makes necessary a new therapeutic focus which, together with the rehydration, takes into account the nutritional aspect. In this report, we analyze the factors that justify the early reintroduction of easily digested nutrients in children with acute infectious diarrhea and we propose different models of refeeding according to age, type of previous feeding, severity of the diarrhea, the hydrational and nutritional status at the time of suffering the infection, and social/family environment of the patient.