There are some popular mistakes when
treating baby’s fever that many parents don’t know.
The story’s from a woman whose 3-year-old
son almost died. Her son’s just been through a big fever; he was brought to hospital
in critical condition. When she found that her son’s temperature was high, she
put ice in a plastic bag, covered it with a towel and placed it near her baby
armpits. After a while, her son started losing consciousness. Immediately, she
took her son to hospital. The doctor said that her son had a cold burn, which
dues to her wrong fever treating. Fortunately, the boy received timely cure.
The woman was very thankful, but at the same time, she regretted about what she
had done to her son.
Not
every parent knows how to take right care of babies having fevers.
Fever is a popular sickness to children, so
it’s important to take care of and monitor babies that have fever. However,
many parents still lack knowledge about dealing with baby’s fevers, so they put
their children’s life in danger; and in the worse situation, the children can
die.
The followings are some popular mistakes of
parents when treating baby’s fevers:
Using feelings to decide children’s sickness
When children have fevers, parents usually
don’t measure the children’s temperature but confirm the stress by feelings;
they consider that if the baby’s forehead seems to be hot, it have a fever.
Some others think that when children’s temperature is 37 degrees Celsius, they
must have fevers. On the other side, there are 9% of women thinking that 38.5
degrees Celsius is the fever’s temperature.
Practically, those behaviors and concepts
of parents are totally wrong. Fever is a physical state that the body
temperature increases over the standard number. Children are considered to have
fevers when their temperature of the mouth is 37.5 degrees Celsius, of the
armpits is 37.2 degrees Celsius.
Many
parents lack knowledge about taking care of babies having fever.
Letting babies take aspirin
This is the dangerous fever treatment but
used by many parents. Aspirin is a common pill that has the ability to cool
down and reduce pain. However, this pill has many side effects.
Aspirin
causes stomach ulcers
At children, especially the young ones,
their gastric mucosa is still on growing and normally has the low lever of acid
secretion. At the same time, acidic aspirin will directly increase acid in
stomach causing gnawing and discomfort, destroy epithelial cells and increase
the risk of having stomach ulcers in children.
Aspirin
causes respiratory symptoms
Respiratory apparatuses of children are
very sensitive and aspirin can cause bad effects on them (to the infant and
young children, aspirin can cause respiratory decrease or failure, especially,
cause bronchospasm which can make the asthma worse in children who have this
disease).
Aspirin
can harm kidneys
Children such as the infant have weak
filter function and poor medicine excretion through renal tube while aspirin is
excreted mainly by kidneys, so if children use aspirin, the slow excretion can poison
them.
Although
aspirin has the ability to cool down the fever, it has many side effects.
Applying cold compress
Some moms wanted to cool the fever, put ice
in 2 plastic bags and covered them with towels, then place them near the baby’s
armpits. This is not a good treatment because applying cold compress to babies
has been prohibited because of the possibilities of causing cold burns and
respiratory failure in children.
If
you want to apply cold compress to babies, you must apply it to nearly their
whole body.
Besides, as soon as finding out that their
babies have fever, moms take cold patches and apply them on the children’s
forehead. The true is this is a wrong treatment because fever patches are cold
patches. If you want to apply cold compress to babies, you must apply it nearly
to their whole body. This treatment is difficult to do, especially in cold
season. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has recommended you not to
apply cold compress to cool down the baby’s fever.
Taking medicines arbitrarily
There’re many moms letting children take
medicine without the doctor’s prescription. Taking medicines arbitrarily
without prescription is very dangerous to children and able to harm their
health. Applying your treatment or following other children’s prescription can
lead to severe complications in children, such as severe pneumonia and
bronchiolitis caused by virus. Those children have longer and more expensive
treating process because they have to use expensive medicines.
Don’t
let your babies take pills arbitrarily.
Additionally, wiping babies with alcohol,
covering the babies too carefully and doing the Gua Sha…are not recommended.
Many parents mistake that that is the good treatment for children having fever.
On the contrary, doctors think that is the dangerous treatment which can make
the baby’s illness worse.
Notes
·
The right treatment for children having fever
including hot compress;
·
Let children drink more water
·
Let them take antipyretics when they’re over 38.5
degrees Celsius
·
The pills have to be suit with their age
·
The time between every time taking pills is 4-6
hours.
·
According to a study, there’s about one third of
moms let their children take antipyretics when the temperature is over 38.5
degrees Celsius; nearly a half of people who are asked let their children take
pills after every 4-6 hours.
