What to do when your child gets a fit or has a high fever?
Do not panic. Keep your child on a bed or a flat surface. Turn your child to the left lateral position. Remove things in the surrounding that can damage your child. Do not try to restrain his movements. Do not put anything into your child’s mouth. At the time of the fit, there can be frothy secretions from the mouth. Wipe out those secretions from a clean cloth. Observe what happens to the child because you will explain what happened to the doctor. Take a video from your phone if you can, so you can show it to the doctor. Fit will usually be settled by 2 to 3 minutes. Then take the child to a doctor to treat the underlying cause of the fever. But if it persists beyond 5 minutes, take the child immediately to the nearest hospital. Make sure you are carrying the child in the left lateral position on the way to the doctor.
Why is this happening?
It happens due to a high fever. Fever is a protective mechanism of the body to fight infection. Usually, children between one month to six years can get fits when they have a high fever. So your child can get fits again with a high fever until he becomes five to six years old. These fit during a fever episode are further classified into simple and complex types. A simple kind of child gets only one fit until the fever settles and lasts less than 15 minutes. In this simple type of fit, there won’t be any damage to your child’s brain, and it will not affect your child’s school performance. He can live a fit-free life after 5 to 6 years.
If the fit lasts more than 15 minutes and the child develops more than one fit during the febrile illness, it’s a complex type of febrile seizure. In complex type the is a risk of developing fits even after the age of 5 to 6 years. Here is a complex type; there’s a chance that it affects a child’s school performance later.
How to treat?
In simple febrile fits, no specific treatment is required. But in complex febrile fits, your doctor will decide whether the child needs long-term medication or not.