Acute Gastroenteritis

Children with medical complexity often receive a recommendation to see an outpatient clinician soon after leaving the hospital. It is uncertain whether every child needs this routine visit or whether follow-up can be guided by the family's concerns and the child's recovery. AFTERCARE is a multicenter pilot randomized trial comparing these two follow-up recommendations for children hospitalized with an acute infection. Families will be assigned by chance to receive either a recommendation to arrange follow-up with their usual outpatient clinician within seven days or a recommendation to seek follow-up if the child is not improving as expected or new concerns arise. Families in both groups may seek medical care whenever needed. The study will assess recruitment, follow-up data collection, delivery of the recommendations and acceptability. Caregiver surveys and medical record review will also describe outpatient visits and hospital returns. This pilot will inform the design of a larger trial, and is not designed to establish that the strategies are equally safe or effective.

The goal of this clinical trial is to compare amino acid-fortified oral rehydration therapy (ORT) to the standard of care ORT in pediatric patients with acute gastroenteritis (AGE). The main questions it aims to answer are: * can amino acid-fortified ORT reduce the duration and severity of AGE compared to standard of care ORT? * can amino acid-fortified ORT increase the secretion of antimicrobial peptides in the gastrointestinal tract compared to standard of care ORT? Participants will be assigned to the experimental treatment (amino acid-fortified ORT) or the standard of care ORT and their disease severity, duration, and stool antimicrobial peptide content.

1. Assessment of the growth parameters in infants admitted with acute gastroenteritis. 2. Determine the prevalence of anemia in infants admitted with acute gastroenteritis.