What happens when a child has a fever and convulsions?

Once family members see signs of a child having a fever, they need to take time to reduce the temperature. If the high fever does not subside, it is easy to have convulsions or seizures, which directly threaten the child's health and life safety. So what is going on with a child having a fever and seizures? In fact, persistent high fever is the main cause of convulsions, and there will be various symptoms after the onset of the disease, which family members need to notice in time.

There are many causes of febrile convulsions in babies, which are often caused by bacterial or viral infections. Such as meningitis, brain abscess, tonsillitis, otitis media, upper respiratory tract infection and bacillary dysentery. The baby's nervous system is underdeveloped, and high fever causes the central nervous system to become overexcited. In addition, the occurrence of febrile convulsions is related to genetic factors. 24% of the sick babies have a family history of febrile convulsions, and 4% have a family history of epilepsy.

Febrile convulsion refers to a sudden convulsion caused by a fever exceeding 38.5℃ due to reasons other than intracranial infection and other pre-existing neurological diseases. The incidence rate in babies under 5 years old is 2% to 5%. Among them, babies aged 6 months to 3 years have the highest incidence rate, with boys more likely to have more seizures than girls. Convulsions also often occur in acute upper respiratory tract infections within 12 hours after the onset of high fever. They are generally short-term, lasting less than 10 seconds, and severe ones may last for more than 10 to 30 minutes. The patient woke up quickly after the attack, and only one convulsion occurred during a high fever.

It is not just high fever that can trigger convulsions. There is also a type of afebrile convulsions, which often occur in some non-infectious diseases, such as intracranial hemorrhage, cerebral edema, epilepsy, cerebral hypoplasia, hydrocephalus, microcephaly, as well as nutritional disorders, metabolic disorders (such as hypocalcemic convulsions), hypoglycemia, food poisoning, drug poisoning and certain pesticide poisoning, etc.

The baby usually shows sudden onset of whole body or local muscle spasm, and does not respond when called. The baby's head is tilted back or to one side, the eyes are rolled up or slanted to one side or blink frequently, the face and lips are pale or blackened, the teeth are clenched, and there is foaming at the mouth (if the tongue is bitten, blood foam will be spit out), the limbs are stiff or twitching rhythmically, and incontinence may also occur. It is what is commonly known as convulsion or epilepsy.

I believe everyone is very clear about what causes children to have fever and convulsions. The problem of fever is very easy to solve, especially when it is a low fever, it can be relieved by physical cooling methods. Therefore, high fever convulsions can also be effectively prevented. In addition, once cramps occur, they must be dealt with promptly and correctly so that children can get through the difficult times.