2023-06-10 19:12:34
A 1-year-old baby should receive between three and six servings of food daily. But beyond that, she must constantly stay hydrated, and drink at least 4 to 5 glasses of fluids. If you don’t, dehydration can set in in a matter of hours. For this reason, explains pediatrician Clemencia Mayorga, For the children lost in the Amazon jungle, the greatest blessing was constant access to water, but also the knowledge of the older children.
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“An important part of survival, speaking of the physiology of children, is hydration. The lack of water for children leads them to a dangerous situation very quickly, in just a few hours. This means that for 40 days they had, one might think, always available water. Rainwater or streams, which must be of good quality and that prevented them from becoming dehydrated, which in a 1-year-old child can occur in a matter of hours”, emphasizes Mayorga.
After 40 days, and in a highly malnourished state, the indigenous children were found in the framework of Operation Hope.
According to the former president of the Colombian Society of Bogotá Regional Pediatrics, the truth is that even with constant access to water, the children probably should have fed on some vegetable diet that would help them obtain part of the energy they required to do the tasks. extensive walks to which they were exposed.
It is very clear to me that the ones who saved the lives of the little children, and especially the 11-month-old, were the big children.
According to the expert, at this point the knowledge of the older children (Lesly, 13 years old and Soleiny, 9) was probably key, who, says Mayorga, were very surely in charge of providing both things to the youngest (Tien, 4 years and Cristin, who was barely 11 months old when the accident happened).
“It seems very important to me to highlight the abilities of the two big children to take care of the small children. It is very clear to me that the ones who saved the lives of the little children, and especially the 11-month-old, were the big children.”, highlights the expert.
What is evident from the photographs that have become known, emphasizes Mayorga, is that the children are in a serious state of malnutrition, probably due to the lack of access to protein.
According to the pediatrician, the one in greatest danger was the youngest child, who at the time of the accident was just 11 months old.
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(Also read: “They are malnourished, very skinny”: the grandfather of the surviving children speaks)
“I believe that there was prior and important knowledge that allowed them to be maintained with a minimum caloric intake. Now, when looking at the images of the children, with the photos that we have recently seen, it is evident that they have a high degree of malnutrition. Surely acute malnutrition, added to chronic malnutrition and that is an important alert condition in terms of health. But, fortunately, finding them alive gives the possibility of a nutritional recovery process being carried out properly in these following days ”says the doctor.
In this sense, Mayorga points out, even under the seriousness of the fact and the young age of the children, access to water and the older children’s possible knowledge of plants that might be consumed in the jungle were key to keeping them alive in the most extreme conditions possible.
According to Mayorga, it is notable from the photographs that have been known so far, the high degree of malnutrition of children
Nestor Gomez. TIME
“To the extent that a child is smaller, the possibility of surviving, without water, without hydration and without nutritional contribution is less. That is to say: the smaller the child is, the less chance of survival is. That is why I insist on two aspects —in the field of speculation—: these children probably always had access to water and the knowledge of the elders as indigenous children gave them the possibility of having some nutritional contribution. As I tell you: an 11-month-old child who does not have fluid intake, in two days is at risk of death ”, concludes the expert.
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