Introduction: Diarrhea is a very common disease in children, Acute diarrhea is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in infants and children. So the aim of this study was to determine the effect of lactose-free formula in improving acute diarrhea in infants aged 3 to 24 months.
Materials and Methods: This randomized clinical trial was performed on infants aged 3 to 24 months who were referred to the hospital following acute diarrhea. Patients were randomly divided into two groups of 52 by quadruple blocking method. The infants received lactose-free formula in the intervention group and normal lactose-containing formula in the control group. The diarrhea frequency during the first three days and weight gain after two, three and seven days from the start of hospitalization were recorded. All patients were weighed at admission time 48 to 72 hours and one week after intervention. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software version 20. A P value level of 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.
Results: A total of 104 patients were included in the study. The results showed that the administration of lactose-free formula in the diet of infants with acute diarrhea (3 days) was capable of reducing the frequency of diarrhea in these infants. However, the use of lactose-free formula in the study group did not cause a difference in weight gain when compared with infants in the control group. Our results also showed that prolonged diarrhea is more related to the better effectiveness of lactose-free formula feeding in the treatment of acute childhood diarrhea.
Conclusion: Lactose-free formula feeding was capable of reducing acute childhood diarrhea frequencies (3 days), but has no effect on improving the consistency of infant feces.
Key words: Formula, Lactose, Acute diarrhea, Infants.
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