Often Occurs During Fasting, Recognize Dehydration And Prevention

JAKARTA - One of the health problems that often occur during fasting is dehydration. This can happen because when fasting a person does not eat or drink for about 12 hours.

Dehydration is a condition when more body fluids are lost than those consumed, quoted from the Mayo Clinic, on Wednesday, February 5, 2025. The body contains 55 to 80 percent of the total body weight.

Water in the body plays a role in helping the work of the digestive system, removing impurities and toxins from the body, maintaining body temperature, and lubricating joints. If you lack fluids or dehydration, it causes the body to not function normally.

Causes of dehydration

Dehydration during fasting can occur due to lack of fluid intake. There are also other conditions that can cause dehydration, such as diarrhea, vomiting, internal heat, excessive urination due to suffering from diseases such as diabetes, high fever, and excessive dryness due to hot weather and exercise.

Symptoms of dehydration

Some of the initial symptoms that will be experienced by someone who is dehydrated are excessive thirst, mouth, lips, and dry skin, rarely urinating, to urine that is darker and smells strong.

Dehydration can also occur in babies. The symptoms of dehydration commonly experienced by babies are little or no tears come out when crying, dry mouth, and not urinating, which causes the diapers to dry after a few hours.

Treatment and prevention of dehydration

If not treated immediately, dehydration can be fatal, such as kidney failure, seizures, hypolocal shocks, and even death. Therefore, dehydration must be treated immediately by drinking lots of water, clear sauce, juice, or infused water if the dehydration is at a mild stage.

In people with severe dehydration, treatment must be done in hospitals. Hospital treatment is in the form of giving infusion.

However, before getting dehydrated, especially in this fasting month, it's better to prevent it first. One of the main ways to prevent dehydration during fasting is to maintain fluid intake.

It is recommended to keep drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day, with two glasses at dawn, two glasses of water when breaking the fast, and four glasses of water after breaking the night. Not only that, also avoid caffeinated drinks and other high sugar drinks to prevent dehydration.