The Newest Tech Helping: You Care For Febrile (Feverish) Infants
When it comes to babies and children, it can be difficult to know when it’s time to worry or not. One of the greatest struggles? Getting your little ones to stay still while you check their temperature. Little babies may become upset, infants squirm, and children may not let you keep the traditional thermometer in their mouth long enough to get an accurate reading.
This is where Jinga Life and digital healthcare technology kick in. But first, let’s take a look at febrile infants in a bit more detail.
What is a Febrility?
Febrile is defined as being feverish, or having a fever. Having a fever as an adult is bad enough, so you can imagine the discomfort a baby, infant or child may have in experiencing a fever.
In febrile infants, the high fever (usually caused by an infection) can cause febrile convulsions - a type of seizure.
Who does Febrility Affect?
Most people will encounter a fever throughout their lives.
Febrile seizures happen in kids from 6 months to 5 years old but they're most common in toddlers 12–18 months old (KidsHealth.org).
The World Health Organisation says febrile seizures occur in young children with normal development without a history of neurologic symptoms.
Causes and Symptoms of Febrility
Any illness that can cause a fever in a child can cause a febrile convulsion. They happen with simple infections like colds, ear infections, chickenpox or tonsillitis. Febrile convulsions usually happen in the first 24 hours of an illness (HSE). Febrility has been linked to family history, should a close relative have suffered from them as a child it is possible for an infant to inherit febrile convulsions.
Symptoms of febrility in Infants can be:
Poor sleeping
Poor eating
Lethargic
Symptoms of febrile convulsions:
Have a fever higher than 38.0 C
Lose consciousness
Shake or jerk arms and legs
Turn blue
Eyes roll back into their head
become stiff and their arms and legs may begin to jerk
(HSE & Mayo Clinic)
What To Do If Your Infant Has a Febrile Seizure
Your infant having a fever can be frightening, but a full on febrile seizure may leave you at a loss. The HSE advise:
If your child is having a febrile seizure, place them in the recovery position. Lay them on their side, on a soft surface, with their face turned to one side. This will stop them swallowing any vomit. It will keep their airway open and help to prevent injury.
It is also recommended that you record the time the seizure started in order to track the progress of it. This can be shared with doctors after. It is very important that you see a doctor as soon as possible after your child’s seizure. It doesn’t matter if the seizure lasted only seconds. Should the seizure last more than 5 minutes contact the emergency services and get your child to an emergency room.
Prevention
There seems to be no direct way to prevent a febrile seizure. You can however, monitor your child’s fever should they have one and educate yourself on the procedure.
Jinga Life and Monitoring your child’s Fever
As we’ve mentioned, getting an accurate temperature reading from a child or infant can be very difficult. With Jinga Life and digital health technology you can easily monitor and track your whole family’s fever. Using a digital thermometer that scans the temporal artery, you can get a clear accurate reading without any invasive measures. You get a reading straight away, with the tech enabled to tell you if the temperature is high, normal or low through colour coded LED’s.
Syncing with your Jinga Life app on your device such as a phone or tablet, you can record each family member’s temperature. This allows you to monitor fevers. You can share these readings with a doctor if needs be, which may help reduce diagnosis time.