What to do if your child has a fever

What parents fear most is not their children being naughty, crying, or making unreasonable demands. What they fear most is their children getting sick. Because children's bodies and minds are not yet fully developed and their organs are in the stage of growth and development, their bodies' resistance to disease is very poor. However, some diseases can damage children's physical functions and prevent them from growing normally, common ones being colds and fevers.

Not only children, but adults are also very likely to catch a cold and have a fever. Children's colds and fevers are generally caused by viral infection. So, what should you do if your child has a fever? Let's introduce it in detail below.

Fever is a regulated increase in body temperature (more than 0.5°C) caused by the action of pyrogens, which shifts the body temperature set point upward. Each person's normal body temperature is slightly different and is affected by many factors (time, season, environment, menstruation, etc.). Therefore, to determine whether you have a fever, it is best to compare your body temperature with your usual body temperature under the same conditions. If you do not know your original body temperature, an axillary temperature (tested for 10 minutes) exceeding 37.4℃ can be considered a fever.

When their children have a fever, parents often become extremely anxious and don't know what to do. If they send their children to the hospital too early, they are afraid of cross infection. So what I have to do is first determine whether the child has a normal body temperature, a low fever, or a high fever. Different situations require different treatments.

After seeing a doctor and determining the cause of the disease, it is recommended to use physical cooling methods as much as possible to help the child lower his body temperature. This is also the advice of many pediatricians now because this cooling method is the safest.

The general physical cooling method is: use warm water at about 37°C to give the child a sponge bath, mainly focusing on the armpits, thighs, and knees. Use a little force until the child's skin turns slightly red. Never use too much force to rub the child, because the child's skin is very delicate, so avoid scratching the child.

The time for sponge bath should be controlled at about half an hour. It is not recommended to use alcohol to wipe children's bodies, as it will cause excessive irritation to children's skin. If alcohol is used for a long time, it may cause alcohol poisoning.

So when should you take antipyretics? When the child goes to bed at night or needs a long period of rest, if the temperature is still above 38.5℃, you can give him antipyretics, because the child needs adequate sleep at this time, and constant bathing will affect the child's rest.

Therefore, antipyretics are only used to help children reduce their temperature when necessary and should not be used lightly. Moreover, do not take any antipyretic medicine more than 4 times a day, otherwise it will harm the child's body.

Children are the flowers of the motherland, the future of the motherland, and our hope. Learning and being a good person should start from childhood, and of course health should also start from childhood. Taking care of children is very hard work and requires a lot of patience. When taking care of children, if we find that the child has signs of fever, we should immediately send the child to the hospital for examination and treatment without any delay, because a fever lasting too long will damage the child's organs and affect the child's growth and development.