Water plays vital role in human body

WATER is a crucial component of maintenance fluid therapy because of the obligatory daily water losses.
These obligatory water losses are both measurable (urine, stool) and non-measurable (insensible losses from the skin and lungs).
Failure to replace these losses leads to a child being thirsty, uncomfortable and ultimately dehydrated.
The goal of maintenance fluid (water) is to replace these losses.
Although urinary losses are approximately 60 per cent of the total, the normal kidney has the ability to markedly modify water losses, with daily urine volume potentially varying by more than a factor of 20.
Maintenance water is designed to provide enough water so that the kidney does not need to significantly dilute or concentrate the urine.
It also provides a margin of safety, so that normal homeostatic mechanisms can adjust urinary water losses to prevent over hydration and dehydration.
This adaptability obviates the need for absolute precision in determining water requirements.
This fact is important, given the absence of absolute accuracy in the formulas for calculation of water needs.
The most reason when your child is sick the urine is yellow is because of dehydration
Let’s encourage mothers to keep giving their child enough water or breastfeed respectively.
As they are the first care givers in the community.

Isaac James,
Residential Clinician (Goroka Provincial Hospital)