High temperature in a child and cold extremities: what to do? Causes and treatment of white fever in children How does a fever manifest in a child.

Before understanding what is white fever in children and to establish a diagnosis, it is necessary to determine the possible reasons and symptoms of the disease.

First of all, fever is associated with raising and fluctuations in human body temperature.

Any parents are seriously worried if the child suddenly has a fever.

Let's see what kind of increase should be considered pathological.

Normal body temperature ranges from 36 to 36.9 degrees, you should know that these figures fluctuate at different times of the day.

The lowest figures are observed in the morning hours - from 5.00 to 6.00, the highest temperature is from 17.00 to 19.00. Therefore, it would be advisable to measure the temperature at this particular time.

If the temperature reaches 37 and above on the thermometer, it means that some kind of inflammatory process is going on in his body.

I advise all mothers, without exception, with an increase, to consult a doctor - after all, in addition to a banal cold, an increase in body temperature may be due to something else. acute illness capable of becoming chronic.

In young children up to 3 months, the processes of thermoregulation are not yet well established, so you should always dress the child according to the weather, without wrapping it up once again.

Wrapping up babies can also provoke a fever.

Often in children under one year there are simultaneous rises in body temperature.

This may be due to teething, sometimes after preventive vaccinations.

In such cases, the temperature reaction of the body is of a short-term nature, but it should not be left unattended.

Also, an elevated temperature can be observed with any lesions. nervous system, in this case one speaks of a temperature of a central nature.

Only a doctor, based on examination and laboratory data, can accurately determine the cause of hyperthermia.

The temperature can be classified according to the altitude as follows:

  • low (below 36),
  • normal (36-36.9),
  • subfebrile (up to 38),
  • febrile (up to 39),
  • high (above 39),
  • excessively high (above 40).

According to the type of daily fluctuations, white fever in children is divided into the following types:

  • Constant. The temperature is constantly high, fluctuations between evening and morning do not exceed 1 degree, such a fever is characteristic of lobar pneumonia, typhoid fever.
  • Intermittent. Daily temperature fluctuations are more than 1 degree, but its minimum threshold is kept within the normal range.
  • Relaxing. Fluctuations are more than 1 degree, in the morning more than 37 degrees. It is observed in tuberculosis, various purulent diseases.
  • Hectic. Raising to very high numbers alternates with normal indicators. It can be observed in sepsis, severe tuberculosis.
  • Reverse (perverted). Morning temperature with such a fever is higher than evening.
  • Wrong. Fluctuations during the day are varied, irregular.

In any case, if the child has a high temperature for more than three days, anti-inflammatory treatment is prescribed, and the baby is also examined. Therefore, with any rise, consult a specialist and do not use antipyretics without a prescription.

Today we will tell you about what constitutes white fever in a child. You will also learn what symptoms are characteristic of this condition, why it occurs, how it is diagnosed and treated.

general information

Fever is called the protective reaction of the sick organism, directed against the causative agent of the virus or infection. In medical practice, this condition is usually divided into white and rose fever.

Accompanied by spasms of blood vessels, which subsequently lead to chills. Such an indisposition is extremely difficult for kids to endure. Therefore, at the first signs of the disease, all measures should be taken to eliminate white fever and transfer it to pink. By the way, the latter condition is characterized by active heat transfer, as a result of which the risk of overheating of the patient is significantly reduced.

White fever in a child: symptoms

Experts have identified three stages of this condition. According to them, they proceed according to certain symptom complexes.

Treatment of the patient should be prescribed only by an experienced pediatrician, in accordance with all febrile manifestations.

White fever in a child proceeds as follows:

  • The baby quickly rises in body temperature.
  • Heat levels are stabilizing.
  • Body temperature drops sharply or gradually decreases to normal values.

Other signs

The baby also exhibits the following symptoms:

  • signs of apathy;
  • lack of appetite;
  • synchronous vasodilation;
  • dehydration and arrhythmia;
  • pale skin;
  • labored breathing;
  • lips with a hint of cyanosis;
  • cold feet and hands.

It should be especially noted that white fever in a child is not a disease, it is a symptom of an illness that needs to be treated.

The identified signs indicate the activation of immunological protection, which is typical for a healthy organism. Through such mechanisms, early treatment by folding a foreign protein.

It cannot be said that, at elevated temperature body quite quickly and successfully begins a kind of preventing the reproduction of all pathogenic microorganisms and foreign viruses. After this, spontaneous inhibition of their vital activity occurs, and then the attenuation of the activity of inflammatory foci.

Causes

Why does white fever occur in a child? The reasons for this condition may be different.

If a baby up to three months of age suffers from such a condition, then this can be a rather severe infection. In this case, hospitalization of the child and inpatient observation is necessary.

Other probable causes

Why can a child develop white fever? Komarovsky E. O. suggests that such a condition may be associated with:

  • virus infection;
  • acute period of infection;
  • the first day of the onset of acute respiratory diseases (including the upper respiratory tract);
  • insufficient and inadequate treatment of microbial or bacterial infection of the systems of the child's body;
  • somatic acute and chronic diseases baby.

It should also be said that, for medical reasons, such a fever can be a harbinger of pharyngitis, rhinitis, bacterial diseases such as otitis media, pneumonia, tonsillitis, inflammation of the middle ear or adenoiditis.

How to diagnose?

There are many ways to diagnose the disease that causes white fever. To do this, you should contact an experienced pediatrician.

Rubella, meningococcemia, scarlet fever, allergic reactions on antipyretic drugs, the baby may develop a rash.

Causes of a feverish state, which are accompanied by catarrhal syndrome, can be rhinitis, pharyngitis, bronchitis, bacterial inflammation in the middle ear, severe forms pneumonia and sinusitis.

From streptococcal and viral tonsillitis, as well as infectious mononucleosis and scarlet fever, fever almost always occurs, accompanied by tonsillitis.

At obstructive bronchitis, laryngitis, bronchiolitis, asthma attacks and inspiratory dyspnea fever manifests itself with difficulty breathing.

A similar condition of a small patient may occur due to brain disorders in encephalitis and meningitis.

Acute intestinal infections it is quite easy to diagnose if the baby has diarrhea and a feverish condition.

If your child has a stomach ache, fever, and constant vomiting, then these conditions may be associated with a urinary tract infection or inflamed appendicitis.

In arthritis, rheumatism, and urticaria, along with white fever, there is painful damage to the joints.

If the cause of the fever is any serious disease, and your child has become too irritable and sleepy, you should immediately consult a doctor. The same applies to symptoms such as impaired consciousness, unwillingness to take fluid, hypo- and hyperventilation of the lungs.

White fever in a child: what to do?

If your baby has a high temperature, and also has a fever, then he should be calmed immediately. The child needs to be explained that he should not be afraid, feel a sense of panic and fear. Experts recommend telling the baby that it is in this way that the protective reactions of his body are activated. Thanks to the fever and elevated body temperature, viruses and infections will go away very soon.

Before the doctor examines your baby, he should provide plenty of fluids. For this, warm fruit drinks, herbal decoctions, compotes and juices are ideal. Wiping the body with a damp sponge is also very effective.

After wiping, as well as fanning the patient, he should be well covered with a not very thick linen diaper. Also Special attention should be given to the nutrition of the baby. Fever should not lead to the exhaustion of the child and the exhaustion of his strength.

The food prepared by you should please the patient, but at the same time be quickly digested and be light.

Medications

How is white fever eliminated in a child? The treatment for this condition depends on the disease. If during the diagnosis process the baby was diagnosed with a bacterial infection, then he is prescribed an antibiotic. In this case, antipyretic drugs are not used. This is due to the fact that they can mask the lack of results of antibiotic therapy.

If the doctor nevertheless prescribed, then they should be chosen very carefully. Preference should be given to those drugs that are harmless to the child's body, and not strong and effective. After all, the stronger the drug, the more toxic it is. You should also pay attention to how convenient it is to use.

The most popular antipyretic drugs today are such medicines as: Efferalgan, Paracetamol, Nurofen, Panadol and others.

Before giving the drug to the patient, be sure to read the instructions, as well as set its dosage. By the way, very often a measuring cup or a spoon is attached to children's medicines. Such devices have a gradation scale, which greatly facilitates the calculation of the dosage.

Pale fever in children is not a pleasant condition. The topic remains controversial and discussed so far, and especially with regards to child health. With all the excess of information and its availability to people, many still zealously continue to bring down the temperature and choke the fever in the bud. The phenomenon of the phenomenon of strife, and they have distinctive features, so you need to be able to interpret them correctly and make adequate decisions on the case so as not to harm the baby. Not so long ago, we covered the topic and the algorithm for helping in such a situation. This time we will touch on white fever in children, consider how it differs from pink fever, and how to properly provide assistance in such a situation.

White fever in children, also called pale fever, is an adaptive reaction of the body aimed at destroying invasive agents. Most often it can be found in respiratory diseases and viral infections. A feverish state in this case should be considered as a payment for stopping and suppressing the disease at its initial stage, and lowering the temperature leads to reverse reactions, and transfers the disease to a long-playing and slowly current phase.

Symptoms of pale fever in children pretty definable to the naked eye:

  • elevated temperature, and its maximum values ​​are noted on the trunk and head, and the limbs remain cold
  • chills can often occur
  • the skin acquires a pale whitish hue and a network of vessels becomes visible on it
  • the baby becomes lethargic and apathetic, refuses to eat and drink, does not play and is naughty.

The temperature spread can be quite large: 37-41 °C. At the same time, one cannot talk about critical and safe parameters, they simply do not exist. It is far from always necessary to bring down high values, and not at all to the parameters of 36.6 ° С, a decrease already by 1-1.5 ° С gives the baby a significant relief of well-being. If we are talking about babies mainly under the age of one year, then values ​​​​in the region of 38.5 ° C can become hazardous to health, for older children we can talk about a threshold of 39.6 ° C, although these are all rather arbitrary values ​​\u200b\u200band cannot be tied to them, t .to. each organism is individual. If the temperature values ​​​​have reached the given values, then you can think about lowering them.

Start with elementary ways without resorting to drugs:

  • put a damp cloth on the forehead, wipe the neck and folds of the crumbs with water. If your feet are cold, wear socks
  • do not wrap the baby tightly, this disrupts the exchange with the environment, reduces sweating and makes the state of health even more difficult
  • let's drink extra (fruit drink, compote).

If after a few hours you have not noticed positive trends in improving the condition of the child, and the temperature continues to rise, then it makes sense to take antipyretics according to the instructions. It is allowed to use paracetamol and ibuprofen. These drugs work pretty quickly, and after 40-60 minutes your baby should feel relief. If the situation does not return to normal, you observe the same signs, and the temperature continues to rise, you notice convulsions in the baby - call ambulance and do not pull further, it can be fraught with serious complications. Pale fever in children it is more severe than red, and its symptoms are more painful and unpleasant, however, with the help offered correctly and on time, you can significantly reduce the risk of complications and stop the fever in 3-4 days. remember, that fever in children This is not a disease, but a protective reaction of the body.

Many young parents find out that a child may have white fever only by directly confronting the problem face to face. And before that, no one had heard of the existing varieties of hyperthermia.

Causes of white fever

With a fever, the body usually reacts to infection with pathogenic microbes and bacteria. It is the high temperature that allows you to stimulate all the defense mechanisms and contributes to the speedy destruction of irritants.

The main feature of white fever in children is the so-called effect white trail. It's simple: if, after pressing on the skin of a sick baby, a bright spot remains for a long time, he has white fever. This happens due to the fact that with a strong spasm, blood circulation in the vessels slows down.

The main causes of white fever in a child are infectious and respiratory diseases. Besides, this species hyperthermia can develop against the background of:

  • injuries;
  • poisoning;
  • acute allergic reactions;
  • vaccinations;
  • fungal infection;
  • edema;
  • burns;
  • hemorrhages;
  • neuralgic tensions.

All babies are susceptible to white fever, but more often than usual, doctors have to diagnose such hyperthermia in the youngest patients - infants.

Caring for children with fever

Immediately after the symptoms of white fever are noticed, specialists should be called. Until the ambulance arrives, parents are allowed to give the child water in small quantities. In no case should you try to reduce by all known methods of physical cooling. Rubbing and cold compresses for white fever can only hurt!

When detecting high body temperature values ​​in a child, many parents, especially young ones, panic, losing self-control and the ability to think clearly. However, as practice shows, such emotions are unnecessary, because they are not only not justified, but also significantly interfere with making the right decisions, which are to provide first aid. Key to identifying high temperature in your child - to bring it down correctly and in a timely manner. In medicine, an increase in body temperature to high levels is called a "fever", which can become a very dangerous condition for the children's age category.

Definition of concepts

Quite often, "fever" is confused with "hyperthermia", although these two concepts are completely different:

  1. Fever is the result of an acute development of diseases of an infectious origin. In this case, high temperature values ​​are a protective reaction of the body, through which immunity is stimulated, metabolic processes are activated, and leukocyte values ​​increase.
  2. Hyperthermia, in turn, occurs against the background of the development of any pathological conditions unrelated to infectious agents. It can be various neoplasms in the body, overheating and other factors.

It is important to understand and be able to distinguish the presented concepts, since the correctness and quality of the provision of the first emergency care.

Types of fever

There are two main types of fever:

  • "white", also referred to as "cold";
  • "pink" or "hot".

The fundamental difference between the "white" type in children is the occurrence of spasms of blood vessels located on the periphery, which suggests the development of the process according to the adult type.

Each of the febrile conditions is characterized by its own characteristics, which are manifested through the following signs:

"Cold" feverish state

  1. The skin of the child becomes pale or cyanotic.
  2. When touched, the skin feels cold and increased dryness, which is especially characteristic of the limbs.
  3. At very low temperature values, the child shows little physical activity, becomes lethargic and apathetic. Along with this, excited or delusional states that do not have a good reason can be observed.
  4. There is an increase in the frequency of the heartbeat, which can provoke the appearance of shortness of breath.
  5. There is a chill, caused by a strong intensity.
  6. Reception medicines with antipyretic effect does not bring a positive result.

"Hot" febrile state

  1. The skin of the child is covered with reddish spots.
  2. To the touch, the skin is warm and moist, which also applies to the limbs.
  3. In accordance with the increase in body temperature, there is an increase in heart rate, pulse and respiration.
  4. In the presence of high temperatures, the child's behavior remains normal.
  5. Antipyretic drugs have a good effect.
  6. In case of rubdown skin with vodka or ordinary water, there is no symptom of "goose bumps".

Since the considered types of febrile state have significant differences in symptoms, it is advisable to carry out different methods of emergency care.

"Pink" fever

Taking medication

  1. In the presence of temperature values ​​\u200b\u200bfrom 37.5 to 38.5 degrees, Paracetamol or medicines based on it, the form of which does not play much importance, will become quite effective. The action of such drugs begins after half an hour and lasts for a couple of hours.
  2. At a temperature that is rapidly creeping up and exceeding 38.5 degrees, it is advisable to use more potent drugs, in the form of Analgin, Aspirin, or a combination of these two components. These drugs are also activated after a half-hour time period, but their duration is 6 hours. In order to obtain a greater positive effect in the absence of any contraindications to their use, "Analgin" and "Aspirin" are taken in turn every 4 hours. It is also possible for them joint reception, but then the period of inactivity should be at least 8 hours.

Bodily cooling of the physical type

  1. After taking medications, cooling will be a good help to the body. For its implementation, one should undress and wipe the whole body with a towel previously moistened with plain water or a solution of vodka, water and vinegar. It is important to do rubbing, during which drops of the composition can evaporate on their own, while taking excess heat with them. After complete drying of the skin, the procedure can be repeated several more times.
  2. A good alternative to a rubdown is a warm shower, after which the temperature can drop a couple of degrees.
  3. It is not recommended to carry out warming-type procedures without taking medication, because at the end of such procedures, the protective function of the body is triggered, forcing it to warm up again, resulting in even more heat production. In the absence of taking antipyretic drugs, the temperature values ​​\u200b\u200bwill only increase.

Drink

  1. To all the procedures described above, it is useful to add a plentiful warm drink, which will help cleanse the body.
  2. An excellent help will be tea with a diuretic effect, which can cause chills. In this case, do not wrap up, as this prevents heat transfer.

"White" fever

Medications

  1. All the same "Paracetamol", "Aspirin" and "Analgin" are suitable as antipyretics.
  2. Together with them, antispasmodic drugs are used that affect vascular walls skin.

Rubbing

For the hands and feet of the child, it is important to warm up with heating pads or rubbing procedures. In this case, wiping is ineffective.

After carrying out the emergency measures described above, the temperature values ​​\u200b\u200bshould decline and decrease by at least a degree. In the absence of positive dynamics, it is advisable to call a doctor, since such persistent febrile conditions indicate serious disorders occurring in the body, requiring urgent medical intervention and a thorough examination.

However, it is important to understand that it is absolutely not necessary to achieve temperature values ​​characteristic of a healthy body, since such sudden temperature changes can cause no less harm to the child. Exceptional cases include the elderly, children in the age category less than a year old, as well as patients suffering from neurological and cardiological diseases. As a rule, in these categories of the population, temperature values ​​\u200b\u200bdo not exceed 38 degrees. As a result, the decrease in temperature to normal figures is slightly perceptible.