Nausea facts for kids
Nausea is a general feeling of unease and discomfort in the stomach, often with the urge to vomit. The word nausea comes from the Latin word for seasickness.
Nausea is usually harmless, in the short term. A good treatment for it can be not to take solid food (and to only drink non-alcoholic drinks, like water).
Causes
Nausea is a symptom, rather than an illness or disease. The causes for it very often are not in the stomach itself, but somewhere else in the body.
- Nausea is often caused by a stomach virus.
- Food poisoning usually causes an abrupt onset of nausea and vomiting one to six hours after ingestion of contaminated food and lasts for one to two days. It is due to toxins produced by bacteria in food.
- Many medications can potentially cause nausea.
- A number of conditions involving balance such as motion sickness and vertigo can lead to nausea and vomiting.
- Nausea can also occur during pregnancy, and is quite normal in that context. People can suffer nausea without vomiting.
While most causes of nausea are not serious, some serious conditions are associated with nausea. These include pancreatitis, small bowel obstruction, appendicitis, cholecystitis, hepatitis, Addisonian crisis, diabetic ketoacidosis, increased intracranial pressure, spontaneous intracranial hypotension, brain tumors, meningitis, heart attack, rabies, carbon monoxide poisoning and many others.
See also
In Spanish: Náusea para niños
