What is the cause of cold hands when the child has a fever?

A child's fever is already worrying for mothers, but if the child not only has a fever but also has symptoms of cold hands and feet, then mothers are basically already panicking. Many mothers are accustomed to giving their children iron supplements, adding clothes, and covering them with thick quilts when they feel their children's hands and feet are cold. Is this method really good? What causes children to have a fever but cold hands and feet?

1. Children with fever and cold hands are a phenomenon of false cold and real heat

In clinic, children often have high fever due to cold, but their hands and feet are cold. After the body temperature gradually drops, the skin of the hands and feet slowly warms up again. This is a false cold and true heat phenomenon. Although the child's hands and feet are cold, the internal organs and body temperature are in a fever state. This is especially common in infants under 3 years old.

2. Causes

This phenomenon occurs because the blood content of children's limbs is less than that of internal organs, so the liver and spleen of children may be temporarily enlarged, which is especially true in pathological conditions such as fever. Due to insufficient blood supply to children's limbs, they are more likely to feel cold than adults. In addition, the development of children's nervous system is not yet complete, and the autonomic nerves responsible for managing vasodilation and contraction are prone to disorder, resulting in the small blood vessels at the end of the limbs being in a spasmodic contraction state and feeling cold when high fever first occurs.

3. Treatment advice

Many parents mistakenly think that their children are cold and afraid of the cold when they find their limbs are cold, and immediately wrap the children tightly with quilts. As a result, the child's body temperature cannot be dissipated in time and rises higher and higher, resulting in high fever and convulsions, which is not conducive to the child's physical recovery. Therefore, when the child's hands and feet are cold, parents should carefully distinguish. A simple way to distinguish whether the child is really cold or falsely cold and really hot is to use a thermometer to measure the child's temperature, or to touch the child's armpits with your hands, or to feel the warmth of the child's exhaled air face to face. Infants during breastfeeding can also judge whether the child has a fever and the degree of fever from the warmth of the mother's nipples when the child is feeding. If the child's hands and feet are cold, and the armpits, forehead, mouth and other parts are burning or the body temperature is too high, antipyretic measures should be taken in time, and the cause of the fever should be found out in the hospital to avoid delaying the disease.

4. Don’t take medicine blindly

There are many causes of fever in children. When the pathogen is unknown, it is best not to abuse anti-inflammatory drugs, because "all medicines are poisonous". If anti-inflammatory drugs are abused, it may cause damage to the liver and kidney functions of children, increase the drug resistance of pathogens, and be detrimental to physical recovery. It is best to treat children's fever under the guidance of a doctor and prescribe the right medicine according to the condition to achieve the effect of curing the disease. If you cannot tolerate the high fever, you can use cold compress to help lower your body temperature. Place a wet cold towel on your forehead, wrists, and calves, and cover other parts with clothing. When the cold compress reaches body temperature, it should be changed, and repeated until the fever subsides. You can also wrap ice cubes in a cloth bag and place it on your forehead.

Now mothers probably have understood that, in fact, the cold hands of children with fever are a phenomenon of false cold and real heat. It is quite undesirable to keep adding clothes or covering the children with thick quilts to increase the children's fever. What mothers should do is to take the children to the hospital for treatment in time, check the children's body temperature at all times, and use cold water cooling method to slowly lower the children's body temperature.