Fever in young children

The scariest thing we dealt with in looking after our children was when the first one of them had a febrile convulsion. The convulsion occurred as a result of a high fever which from my recollection from childhood was no big deal. I did not have a recollection of being a very young child and I can now assure you that a fever is an issue to be dealt with in young children.

Our daughter was approximately 18 months old and developed a high temperature. In an attempt to get the temperature down I ran a bath and put her in. The idea was to cool her down quickly and I had been told a tepid bath was the way to go. ( Tepid means moderately warm) I did not give enough attention as to how hot a tepid bath should be. If a little on the cooler side well maybe it might work quicker than if the water was a bit hotter.   WRONG !!

The cooller bath had  the effect of giving the child goose bumps which is the bodies way of retaining heat when cold. This was the opposite of what I was trying to achieve and the childs temparature would have increased causing a Febrile Convulsion to occur whilst in the bath. With the child then violently convulsing in the bath I had three problems, 

1 I had no idea what was happening and why, so I was petrified

2 I had to keep the child above water to prevent them drowning, which was difficult whilst soapy, wet and convulsing

3 I had no real idea of what to do next as I had never heard of a Febrile Convulsion before.

What we did was run out side screaming, Carrying the convulsing baby, being careful not to drop it, (slippery when wet) and fortunately a neighbour was familiar with what was happening and calmed us down and the child stopped convulsing after approximately 3 minutes. We called an ambulance and they took us to hospital and the child stayed over night to ensure that no other serious illness occured or damage was done. 

The Doctors were able to explain what happend and why and that assisted us with the rest of our children to try to ensure that we kept there temperatures down whilst young.  The doctors advised us that in young children their "internal thermostat" was not properly developed and the convulsions are the bodies way of cooling the body quickly. 

If a convulsion was to occur with your child you need to ensure that they do not hurt themselves by bumping into things and try to ensure that they do not choke if they vomit so lay them on their stomach or side.

The key message here is,

To get your child cool, the bath temperature really only needs to be approx 1-2 degrees cooler than the childs current temperature,  so if the temperature is 39 degrees (approx 102farenheigt)  approx then the bath only needs to be 37 - 38 degrees (98 - 100 degrees) to cool them down and have the effect that you want. The child will cool down gradually and so will the bath water which will assist in getting your child to the temp that you want. A mild temperature may be tolerable for a while however a high termperature can lead to a very scary event.

The bath works the quickest however if too cold you may get an unpleasant, scary, shock. The best way to measure the bath temperature is with the inside of your forearm by putting that in the water. If the water feels as hot as your arm, ie not hot or cold to your touch then it is probably okay to put your child into. Remember that your temperature is probably 96 - 97 degrees normally so  that would be approx how hot the water would be which is cooler than the childs higher temp however not too much cooler.

Besides using the bath medications such as Panadol can also assist in getting the temperature of your child down however you should always speak with your doctor, pharmacist or other adviser before you give your baby any medications.