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What are some basic comfort measures I can take to help my child with a fever?

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Robin Vick
Continuum Pediatric Nursing

What are some basic comfort measures I can take to help my child with a fever?

 

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Host: What are some basic comfort measures I can take to help my child with a fever?

Robin Vick: Keeping a child loosely lightly clothed, not over bundled will help to keep the child from getting more warm and more febrile. I would like to also suggest that some basic comfort things like a nice cool compress on the forehead or on the back of the neck can be something which provides a great deal of comfort and some temperature relief for kids. I want to caution you, not to do some certain things in managing fever.

For example, we used to be, we recommended alcohol rubs and the reasoning behind that is that alcohol when rubbed over the body, the thinking was that in as it evaporated it put overall coolness along the whole length of the body. That's true, but what happens is children get cooled off too fast when that approach is used. So no alcohol rubs are best.

Also your doctor would make some guidances to whether it's appropriate to actually bathe your child. Some families are successful in helping to bring down a high fever by very gently giving a sponge bath to the baby. You have got to be careful though to follow your doctor's guidelines because the application of water that is too cool on bare skin can result in a really dramatic drop in the child's temperature which is just is problematic.

So here I am recommending talking to your doctor having -- again, here is the basic care plan coming into play. What is the physician or practitioner RD let you to know in the overall health care guidelines upon how to manage a child's fever. Those are things that you should have already gotten information on from your doctor.

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