Children's head sweats

Many parents will find that their children sweat a lot on their heads. This is an adverse reaction and has a great impact on the baby. It is easy for the baby to become dehydrated or have problems with physical growth and development. Faced with this situation, parents need to pay special attention and take timely measures to deal with it. So let’s explain in detail why children sweat on their heads.

Sweating is a normal physiological function

There are approximately 2 to 5 million sweat glands in human skin, which form a developed sweat system. When the human body is in a high temperature environment, it sweats a lot through physiological regulation, and the evaporation of sweat takes away the heat from the body surface, so that the body temperature does not rise due to the high temperature outside, thus maintaining a constant body temperature. Therefore, sweating is a protective reaction of the human body to adapt to the high temperature environment.

Compared with adults, infants and young children have higher water content in their skin, more microvessels on the surface of their skin, and they are more active and have a high metabolism, so more water evaporates from their skin. Furthermore, the secretion of sweat glands is regulated by the autonomic nervous system. The baby's neuroendocrine regulation function is relatively poor, and the cerebral cortex has poor inhibitory function on the autonomic nervous system. Even when sleeping at night, the autonomic nervous system is still in an excited state, so the baby is prone to sweating when he just falls asleep.

Reasons for excessive sweating in babies

In medicine, the phenomenon of babies sweating excessively is called "hyperhidrosis", which can be divided into "physiological hyperhidrosis" and "pathological hyperhidrosis".

Physiological hyperhidrosis

For most babies, sweating is a normal physiological phenomenon, medically known as "physiological hyperhidrosis", and there are usually obvious external causes or triggers. like:

The weather is hot or the indoor air-conditioning temperature is too high, causing the baby to sweat excessively;

·Babies sweat a lot after playing, running, jumping, or doing strenuous exercise;

The baby is overdressed;

The quilt is too thick at night, causing the baby to overheat and sweat a lot;

Eating spicy foods, such as chili peppers, can also cause excessive sweating.

Pathological hyperhidrosis

Pathological hyperhidrosis refers to hyperhidrosis caused by certain diseases, and the cause is relatively complicated.

Childhood obesity: Obese babies will sweat profusely even when they move or walk.

Hypoglycemia: Symptoms include sadness and restlessness, pale complexion, cold sweats, even profuse sweating, and cold limbs.

Drug-induced hyperhidrosis: Taking too much antipyretic medicine can cause excessive sweating or even collapse.

Acute and chronic infectious diseases: Typhoid fever, sepsis, rheumatoid arthritis, connective tissue disease, lupus erythematosus or blood diseases often cause excessive sweating, and usually require a doctor's diagnosis.

·Children's cardiopulmonary diseases: Children with congenital heart disease, pneumonia and heart failure often sweat profusely.

Rickets in children: Hyperhidrosis is an important characteristic manifestation of rickets in the active stage, usually accompanied by symptoms such as crying at night, bald spots on the back of the head, ping-pong head, square skull, enlarged anterior fontanelle and delayed closure.

·Pediatric tuberculosis: Babies with tuberculosis not only sweat a lot in the first half of the night, but also in the second half of the night before dawn, which is called "night sweats". It is also accompanied by poor appetite, low or high fever in the afternoon, flushed face, weight loss, etc. Some people may also have cough, liver and spleen