Patient's question:
I have a child at home, 3 years old in. She has never been willing to eat staple foods. Every time, in order to get her to eat more, I have to resort to coaxing and tricking her, but it still doesn't yield much results. Whenever she manages to eat a few more bites, the last one makes her feel nauseous or something, and she ends up vomiting all the food in her stomach, only to have wasted it. After vomiting, the child doesn't cry or fuss, and continues to play around. The family is always worried that if she continues to refuse to eat staple foods, her nutrition will be poor. They are also speculating whether the child's stomach might be having some kind of problem?Doctor's answer:
Children experiencing vomiting is usually due to gastrointestinal reasons, but there are also other factors that can cause it. The most common cause is acute gastroenteritis, which results from improper diet, consumption of indigestible foods, or irritant foods. It can also be seen in the early stages of a gastrointestinal-type cold, which is a symptom that accompanies the cold and typically disappears within one or two days without accompanying diarrhea symptoms. It can also be a sign of encephalitis or brain hemorrhage in the nervous system, or a result of brain tumor lesions leading to increased intracranial pressure, causing projectile vomiting.