Susan K Mann

Award Nominated Mummy & Parenting blogger. Blogging about the highs and lows of being a working mother of two princes & princess, living out our own fairytale in Scotland.

Fevers & Febrile Convulsions

By 19 Comments

When you have a newborn baby, you have so many concerns, worries and fears running through your head. You do your best for them, but they cannot talk to you which makes things difficult. Nothing is more worrying than when your baby is ill. You take their temperature every five minutes, read, check and double check the calpol box before giving them the medicine or call someone for advice. We second-guess ourselves, we doubt ourselves, but no-one knows our baby like we do. We need to trust our instincts.

If you listen to our mothers we would wrap the little lambs up, let them sweat it out. This is the worst thing we can do. I learned the hard way about the dangers of fevers. Lucas has always had issues with high temperatures, but nothing compared to the 4th December 2007. He was just under one year. He’d had an upset stomach but nothing major. His temperature was up but not by much. It was at 38’C. He’d had calpol but nothing else. He was bum shuffling about the floor (he never crawled just bum shuffled) when he fell back again one of his toys and went limp.
I picked him up and he started to shake. His arms and legs were shaking violently. His eyes were vacant. He was looking at me but not at me, straight through me. I tried to remain calm, no idea how. I called my sister in law, who is an A&E sister, not only that she was off that day as it was her birthday. She jumped straight in her car. As soon as I got off the phone, Lucas’s lips went blue, he stopped breathing. I took him outside to cool him and called 999. By the time I got through to the ambulance operator he was starting to come round. Being outside in December, in Scotland, certainly has it’s uses.
The lovely operator spoke to me and got me to check Lucas over. She told me an ambulance was on its way. She was going to talk to me until the ambulance got there. Thankfully my sister in law arrived and she could issue any treatment. The rapid response ambulance came first, then the ambulance, all a bit of a blur at that point. Thankfully Lucas had regained consciousness. But still floppy.
Lucas had his first febrile convulsion. The high temperature triggered it. This wasn’t that high but he is sensitive to it. After some information, explanation, tests and some medicine, we were discharged.
Having to call a 999 ambulance and seeing your baby stop breathing is the most horrific thing I have ever experienced.
This wasn’t his last 999 ambulance due to his fevers. His lips and nails go blue and his hands and feet go cold when his temperature starts to go up. The doctors explain this as his body shuts parts down due to the shock.
He has outgrown the convulsions now, but he still has the blue lips, etc and his fevers still spike. Every time he is ill, even with a small cold he gets a high fever. We have to deal with them quickly. Firstly giving ibuprofen and paracetamol. Next stripping him undercrackers. He doesn’t like the tepid bath, so I give that a miss. The sponging down helps, but I read about adding some vinegar helps bring in down. I am not 100% sure but I think it does help.  The main thing is to trust your instincts and get in there early with the medication.
One thing I came across recently was Babyglow. These are clothing which changes colour if your baby’s child’s temperature rises. I wish they had these when Lucas was a baby it may have saved me a lot of heartache.
If you want to read further on febrile convulsions, what to look for and what to do. You can go here.
How do you deal with illness? Does your child suffer from high fevers? How do you cope?
This post is protected under copyright. SusankMann 2009 – 2014

Comments

  1. How scary Susan , i had no idea you went through that with Lucas.We really only had to deal with convulsions once and that was just after Becca has her MMR , was so scary . She also gets really high tempertures – even a cold causes her to go over 40 (just like daddy) . When she was ill and in hospital this use to really worry them and they felt like the had to fight all the time because they could not get it down (but would not beleive me that it was just her way) . Her lips go blue to and she just looses all colour in her skin . My other two don't really get sick , at least the way my eldest does . It is never fun :(Done the calling ambulance thing for struggling to breath babes too and hope i never have to do it again – although Becca does use it as a "i am cool" point and reminds her sister all the time that she went in a nee-nahw hah

    Reply

  3. Four of my close friends have toddlers who have had many febrile convulsions – it's so much more common that you would think… it seems crazy that the health visitors, NCT instructors, doctors etc never mention it or tell us what to do in the event of a fever fit. One of the toddlers had a moderate fever, but was well enough to be sitting up at the dinner table during a family meal. They had never heard of a febrile convulsion, and certainly wouldn't have known that it oculd happen even without extremely high temperatures. When he started convulsing and rolling his eyes they thought he was choking to death – there was nothing they could do to stop the fit, and they literally thought that they were watching their son die right there in front of them. I can't imagine how awful that must have been. Thanks for writing this post – I hope lots of other parents come across it and know what to look out for and how to deal with it.

    Reply

  7. The geekdaughter has now had two febrile convulsions – the first in front of me, the second at nursery (is it wrong to be grateful I wasn't there for the second one?). I remember the overwhelming sense of her not looking like herself, as her eyes rolled back in her head. It is the scariest thing to watch.I was shocked that she was the first child anyone at her nursery had seen had one, as I thought they were pretty common. Or maybe it's just me being a bad mother and sending her to nursery with a temperature… Although to be fair, with the first convulsion we'd had no warning at all that it was coming – she'd shown no signs of a temperature whatsoever, so silly me thought if the temperature had broken and was being treated with Calpol, she'd be fine…

    Reply

  8. It's terrifying when these things happen. My daughter had febrile convulsions. She had one at Legoland on a hot day. She was a little bit poorly but we thought it'd cheer her up (worst decision ever). She was floppy with her eyes rolled into her head. She just wasn't there. It turned out she had the onset of pneumonia…I felt like a terrible mother 🙁 She was the poorly, delicate one out of my five children…but is now a healthy 14 year old. Thank goodness they grow out of it!

    Reply

  9. Scary! Blondie Boy has just had his first fever and it's been here on/off since Sunday. I can't imagine what you went through!

    Reply

  10. I can't imagine how difficult this must have been for you. As you know I'm epileptic and even though it's controlled with drugs, I will always be at risk of having convulsions. And it's very scary.You be there for him, you're a wonderful mum.CJ xx

    Reply

  11. Thank you for all your wonderful comments. Sharing your experiences is a big help, we do tend to blame ourselves but we do the best we can and we are good parents that's all that matters. x

    Reply

  12. Susan,That is sooo scary!!! I am so grateful for being able to read it tonight!!!Just as my kids have nasty colds.3Yo has been ill for few days now but the 8mths old just started to have high temperature since yesterday evening ( 39 deg) which is pretty scary to me considering she has never been ill in her short life. I read your post and thought I better go and check on them. And was shocked to see little one with 40 deg!!!She seemed ok but her legs and feet were cold. Didn't wait a minute gave her Calpol and run cold bath.In no time the temp went down and she is sleeping in her very light clothing now.It gives me the shivers to think she could have gone into shock. I normally try to avoid situations with high temperatures, so as soon as the temp goes up I undress kids and give them Calpol. But this time is different as soon as the medicine wears off the temp goes straight to 39!!! some nasty cold as GP said.So just want to say again THANK you for posting this and Thank you all other mummies for posting your stories.xxx

    Reply

  13. Oh my lovely, how scary. My DS2 (the sensitive soul who glues us all together and loves us so hard) is asthmatic and I had blue light ambulance trips with him on oxygen when he was a tot and before we found the right medication combo to control it so I feel for you. xxx

    Reply

  14. Oh man, this is why we were whisked off in an ambulance on Saturday. Erica's had a convulsion before and she was starting to go really pale & jerky.I hope Lucas grows out of it all, it's so scary.

    Reply

  15. Touch wood we've never had anything serious happen. But when the Little Man was still very wee a nurse gave me tip for fevers and we've used it since. If he gets a bad fever that we cannot break with Calpol or similar, we use infant pain suppositories. They work literally within minutes to break the fever, and they generally sort him out perfectly by the next day with no after effects. We've only had to use them four times but they really help as far as having peace of mind.Hope your little man outgrows all the symptoms!

    Reply

  17. It is truly awful isn't it, our blood pressure must be through the roof with the scares we face as parents! Am so glad he has outgrown it for you now x

    Reply

  19. We are in Scotland too, the cold weather has it's advantages! NHS were great with us as well. Still very scary though.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *