My child always has pain around his belly button

Generally speaking, if a child is feeling unwell, they cannot hide it at all. If your child often has pain around his belly button, it may be because he has eaten something bad, causing a gastrointestinal infection. Children must not take medicine randomly. It is best to go to the hospital for a check-up. Get the medicine according to the doctor's instructions. Generally, there is no problem with the medicine prescribed by the doctor. You can rub your child's stomach appropriately, which can effectively relieve the pain.

1. Ascariasis

Characteristics of abdominal pain: Sudden abdominal pain occurs when the environment changes or the child has a fever, diarrhea, hunger, or eats spicy food. The child cries, rolls on the ground, bends over, sweats, and has a pale face. The abdominal pain is most severe around the navel. It is often accompanied by vomiting, and even roundworms may be vomited out. Sometimes abdominal pain can be relieved or even disappear on its own, and the child will appear tired. After fully recovering, he can play as usual. The pain lasts for several minutes each time and may occur every other day or several times a day.

Cause of abdominal pain: After the larvae of Ascaris develop into adults in the small intestine, they have toxic effects and mechanical stimulation to the small intestine, causing symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, and indigestion. When the number of adult worms reaches dozens or hundreds, the worms can twist into a ball and cause intestinal obstruction. Ascaris has the habit of drilling holes, and often drills into the appendix and bile duct, causing appendicitis and biliary ascariasis, resulting in abdominal pain.

How to deal with it? In recent years, there are many new symptomatic drugs with high efficacy and few side effects, such as levamisole, mebendazole, tetramisole, etc. Children with ascariasis can take these drugs under the guidance of a doctor.

Special reminder: Ascariasis is quite widespread, with higher incidence in rural areas than in cities and more in children than in adults, and the infection rate can reach over 85%. Therefore, prevention should be the priority: wash and cook vegetables, wash and peel fruits, do not drink raw water, and wash hands before and after meals. It is also important to cut your child's nails frequently, as the dirt under the nails often contains many roundworm eggs.

2. Acute appendicitis

The characteristics of abdominal pain are that the child feels stomach pain or pain around the navel at the beginning, and it turns into pain in the lower right abdomen after a few hours. Pressing the right lower abdomen of a child with your hand will intensify the child's crying. The child is often accompanied by symptoms such as nausea and vomiting, and then has a fever, and the body temperature can rise to around 39°C.

The abdominal pain is usually not severe, but the child often lies in bed with his right leg curled up or walks with a bent back. If the child cannot express the pain in words, his crying will be different from usual, and he will curl up his body and break out in cold sweats. If the baby cries for more than 3 hours, parents should suspect the possibility of appendicitis.

Acute appendicitis can occur in children of all ages and is relatively common. In addition to abdominal pain, the following symptoms may also occur:

1. Nausea and vomiting: Most children experience vomiting, and the vomitus is mostly undigested food.

2. Fever: Most children start to have a fever shortly after the onset of abdominal pain. Some children may cry and have a fever at the same time.

3. Afraid of having the belly rubbed: The child is afraid that the parents or doctors will press hard on the lower right abdomen, which will cause the abdominal wall muscles to tighten and the child will refuse to have his abdomen rubbed. Some children also have atypical symptoms. For example, some children have diarrhea from the beginning, which is very similar to enteritis.

How to deal with appendicitis in children? Appendicitis develops quickly and if it persists for a long time, appendicitis perforation may cause purulent peritonitis, which may endanger the child's life. Therefore, if a child is found to have the above symptoms, he or she should be sent to the hospital as soon as possible.

Special reminder: Since acute appendicitis is often accompanied by fever, children with atypical abdominal pain may be easily mistaken by parents as having a cold or diarrhea, so parents should pay attention and observe carefully.

3. Incarcerated hernia

Characteristics of abdominal pain: Children experience intermittent crying, abdominal pain, bloating and vomiting. A swelling may appear on the inner side of the groin when standing or straining to defecate, or only one side of the scrotum may be enlarged. This condition may recur after treatment by a doctor.

The cause of abdominal pain is that the abdominal pressure increases due to children's crying, coughing, laughing, sneezing, and straining (such as when defecating), which causes the intestines to enter the groin or scrotum and cause abdominal pain. Umbilical hernia and inguinal hernia are the most common hernias in children. Umbilical hernia rarely becomes incarcerated, and most abdominal pain is caused by incarceration of inguinal hernia.

How to deal with it: The child must be sent to the hospital for treatment in time.