Vomiting and abdominal pain in the child
Last reviewed: 19.10.2021
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
Infants often have colic, especially male infants. This is quite normal, colic begins at about two weeks of age and stops torturing the child at the age of three to four months. The pain with colic is strong enough, the child cries, knits, farts. At the same time, infants often regurgitate food, and it is sometimes difficult to understand vomiting from him or regurgitation.
If a child cries from abdominal pain for more than three hours in a row, throws up the chest and vomits (regurgitation occurs immediately after meals and does not cause significant discomfort to the baby), vomiting occurs immediately after feeding and after a certain time after eating, you need to see a doctor and examine the child. Usually, if the baby is worried about vomiting, the child is sluggish, dehydrated, and poorly gaining weight. The most common causes of vomiting and pain in the abdomen of the infant are developmental pathologies that cause gastric or intestinal obstruction: constriction of the pyloric part of the stomach or intestinal invagination. These are correctable pathologies, however, the conditions are urgent and require surgical treatment.
When a child has a stomach ache and vomiting with fever, the most likely cause is rotavirus infection. In children, the outgrowth of the caecum can also become inflamed and other completely "adult" pathologies may appear. Children older than infants can be poisoned, get infected with helminths. Allergic reactions, intolerance to any products can manifest themselves in this way.
If a child has a stomach ache and vomiting without diarrhea, then you need to remember when the last time he went "for a long time." Maybe - this is a banal constipation, however, the likelihood of acute appendicitis or inflammatory process in another organ - stomach, gallbladder, pancreas, liver - is also possible. Absence of diarrhea does not completely exclude poisoning and intestinal infections, but takes these causes back to the fore.
Complaints that after a vomiting hurts a stomach at the child, can testify about any inflammatory process as in itself vomiting does not eliminate a pain in this case. True, then the stomach had to ache before the vomiting.
If it started suddenly and before the occurrence of emetic pain, there were no pains, complaints about abdominal pain may be caused by stress of the abdominal muscles during emetic spasms. Such pains will quickly die down if the child lies quietly.
Very emotional children, especially those growing in an unfavorable psycho-emotional climate, may experience abdominal pain and psychogenic vomiting accompanied by a slight increase in body temperature, migraine-like pain, fluctuations in blood pressure, a change in the skin color of the face - flushing, pallor, nausea, diarrhea or constipations.
In general, abdominal pain and vomiting are an occasion to call a doctor at any age. It is recommended to call an ambulance in cases when a sudden onset of pain awakens the child, if the pain does not let go for two hours in a row and in a complex with it there is at least one symptom - nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and all the more so all at once; if the pain is localized in a particular place and is recalled by strengthening with gentle pressure on it, and also - when vomit masses, urine or faeces show traces of blood.
It is necessary to visit the doctor and be examined in cases when the child periodically complains of pain in the abdomen and has a vomiting, and also - when the child does not eat well, has lost weight, has become less moving and has a painful appearance.