What to do if a child has a fever of 40 degrees

We all know that when a child has a fever of 40 degrees, it is considered a high fever. Parents must take their children to the doctor as soon as possible to avoid delaying treatment and causing unnecessary harm to the child's body. What are the symptoms when children have a fever? What measures should generally be taken? The following is a detailed introduction for everyone, hoping to help parents and friends.

After a fever occurs, the heart rate increases, and the heart rate increases by about 10-20 times for every 1 degree Celsius increase in body temperature. The heartbeat speeds up, blood circulation is vigorous, and the amount of blood flowing to the inflamed area increases. On the one hand, this can dilute the bacteria and the toxins they produce. On the other hand, the white blood cell count also increases. In addition to directly destroying and engulfing bacteria and viruses, it can also produce an endogenous heat to produce antibodies that have the ability to kill bacteria or viruses, thereby promoting improvement of the disease. At the same time, the iron in the blood is temporarily stored in the liver. Bacteria need iron more than humans. Once iron is deficient, bacteria will find it difficult to grow, thus achieving the purpose of eliminating bacteria.

If you use too many antipyretics as soon as you have a fever, not only will the above series of changes be difficult to achieve, but it may also mask the condition and delay treatment. In addition, the atypical symptoms after fever subsides also make diagnosis difficult. Therefore, when you have a fever, do not rush to reduce the fever before the diagnosis is confirmed. When one of the following situations occurs, you should appropriately use antipyretic analgesics:

1. Fever is too high (over 39 degrees), especially if the baby has high fever convulsions;

2. Although the fever is not too high, the child has obvious headache, insomnia, impaired consciousness, and has difficulty resting;

3. Those whose heart and lung functions are endangered due to persistent fever, or those who are intolerant to high fever.

Generally speaking, if the baby's body temperature is below 38 degrees, there is no need to take antipyretics. Just drink plenty of water (small amounts and multiple times) and rest in bed. If the body temperature is above 38.5 degrees, you can use a towel soaked in warm water to place it on the forehead, armpits, thighs and other parts to cool down.

During a high fever, the motility of the gastrointestinal tract slows down and the baby usually has no appetite. Do not force the baby to eat, because the baby with a high fever needs to evaporate heat energy in the form of sweating and consumes a lot of water. Therefore, during the fever period, give your baby more water and mainly feed him liquid food.

In fact, we all know that children often have fever during their growth. When a child has a fever of 40 degrees, parents cannot simply take conservative physical methods to reduce the temperature at home. They should seek help from a doctor as soon as possible to reduce the child's fever as soon as possible and prevent the condition from further worsening.