When will the child go to the hospital for fever

The child has fever, and what many parents want to find out is the cause of the fever. If you know that it’s not a big deal, worry and anxiety will be more or less lessened.

However, there are many reasons for a child's fever. Sometimes the child has a fever for a few days, and the cause is not clear when he recovers. This is actually very common.

Sometimes it is because the current medical level is difficult to determine; sometimes it is because it is very expensive to find out the cause, and the cost of examination is even more harmful than the disease itself; sometimes because it is impossible to find out the cause. Or nothing needs to be done at all.

It is naturally better to know the cause of fever, but sometimes the doctor can’t figure out the cause, which makes it even more difficult for parents. But no matter what causes the fever, the principle of coping with it is the same. For parents, knowing how to deal with fever and knowing when to go to the hospital is more important than entangled in the cause of fever.

If a child has fever, the first thing to know is that the causes and treatment measures for fever are different for children of different ages.

During the newborn period (0-28 days), more than 10% of fevers are caused by serious infections, such as bacteremia, meningitis, pneumonia, etc. The neonatal immune system is very imperfect, which can easily lead to serious consequences. At this stage of fever, the best decision for parents is to take their children to the hospital.
Fever in children aged 1 to 3 months is largely caused by self-limited viral infection, but a larger proportion is caused by bacterial infection. Also, because the children are small and unsafe, it is difficult to identify them. Doctors need to do some tests to screen out the lower-risk children. Parents cannot judge the risk at home, so they must be sent to the hospital in time.

Children older than 3 months have fever, most of which are self-limited infections caused by viruses. In many cases, you can observe and care at home, but if you are not sure, you should still see a doctor. If you choose to observe at home, what about observation? The most important thing is the child's mental state. Paying attention to the child's mental state is more important than paying attention to the child's body temperature. If the mental state is not good, go to the hospital.

For parents, it is relatively simple to judge the child's mental state. If the child is still playing and interacting with adults, it means that the child's mental state is not bad. However, it is not so easy for parents to judge that the child's mental state is not good. Fever makes many children drowsy, and it is difficult to tell whether it is really bad mental state or fever that makes the child sleepy. In this case, doctors are sometimes inaccurate, not to mention parents. If you don't know what to do, go to the hospital early and don't be lucky.

In addition, if the child has headache, stiff neck, convulsions, sore throat, earache, rash or bruises on the body, repeated vomiting, diarrhea and other accompanying symptoms while having fever, he should also go to the hospital. Children under the age of 2 have a fever for more than 24 hours, and children aged 2 and over have a fever for more than 3 days, and they should also go to the hospital. No matter what age, body temperature repeatedly exceeds 40°C, or other parents feel insecure, they must go to the hospital.