Forget cool baths, cold compresses and fever medication when your child has a fever. New advice from doctors in the US suggests you should let a fever run its course.
For decades parents have been warned about the potential medical side effects of a high fever including brain damage if a child’s body temperature isn’t brought down. But a clinical report published in the medical journalPediatricshas contradicted this advice, suggesting a high temperature or fever actually has no potentially detrimental side effects.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has instead said that lowering a fever could, in fact, prolong the illness that caused the fever in the first place and the only benefit of reducing the fever was to make the child more comfortable.
“In a normal child there’s no set temperature at which you’d need to treat a fever,” study co-author Dr Janice Sullivan, a professor of paediatrics and paediatric critical care at the University of Louisville, told Today.com.
“Our recommendation is primarily to treat discomfort associated with an illness rather than the fever itself. So, when children are uncomfortable or crying, then you should treat them with medication.”
The report’s authors analysed previous studies into fevers and found that unless the child was younger than three months of age or had heart problems, there was no evidence that a fever could harm a child.
Reducing the fever could prolong the initial illness because a fever is the immune system’s defence against bacterial or viral infections.
“When you look at fever and the physiology behind it, really, it’s not necessarily a bad thing,” CBS medical expert Dr Jennifer Ashton told theEarly Showin the US.
“It’s the body’s response, usually, to a bacterial or viral infection, and it really kind of jump-starts the immune system and is helpful in fighting that infection. So it’s really not all bad.”
The normal body temperature range is between 36°C and 37.5°C. Anything above this is considered a fever or “temperature”. Parents should still be careful with children younger than five years of age as fevers can spike rapidly, leading to febrile convulsions or fits. In this instance, parents should seek immediate medical attention.
Read more about fevers and your children
