Hypernatremic (Hypertonic) Dehydration in Infants

Abstract

THE emergence of hypernatremic dehydration as a recognized and rather common clinical entity in pediatrics has occurred over the past 20 years. These two decades of clinical observation and clinical therapeutic trial have increased the known scope of the problem and have slowly produced advances in therapy.The entity defines a physiologic disturbance of two important parts, one of which (dehydration) denotes a loss of body water. The other part of the disturbance denotes a maldistribution of body water between its major compartments; the cells give up water to the extracellular space. Sodium salts, particularly chloride, because of the relative . . .