How To Tell When A Fever Is Dangerous

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     Each time there is a news report about a child who had a fever and rapidly progressed to death, all parents naturally become frightened. Some infectious diseases can move rapidly from mild to life-threatening. But there certain signs that parents can watch for to alert them when their child has a fever.

     Fever is the body's way of fighting infection. Fever itself is not dangerous and does not cause brain damage. The height of the fever does not tell you about the severity of the disease - even simple viral illness can cause a child to have high fevers. Viral illness can give an up-and-down fever for about three days. This fever is always higher at night. The child will feel poorly when the fever spikes, but the child should feel better when the fever goes down. The child who is acting progressively more ill – even after a fever-reducing agent is given and the fever goes down slightly – is a child parents should be concerned about. The child with a variable fever and mild symptoms of a viral illness such as sore throat or congestion is probably fine. The child with a more serious illness often has confusing symptoms that seem more severe than a typical cold or cough and the symptoms just keep getting worse. Fever in a child who has had a mild injury or cut but has pain out of proportion to the degree of injury should be investigated. So should fever with headache that is worse than any previous headache and continues to get worse even after taking pain-reliving medication.
     Any child whose symptoms continue to get worse needs to be examined right away, even if the child has been previously examined. Parents will frequently wait to have the child reexamined because the child was seen by a doctor and the parents were told the illness wasn’t serious. These parents will often say that they felt the child was sick but ignored their instincts because of that previous exam. A child who is getting worse or developing new symptoms needs to be reexamined even if he was seen earlier that same day.

     In a mild viral illness, daytime fever should resolve after three days even though the child may still have late-afternoon and night-time fevers for an additional night or two. If the daytime fever continues longer than three days, the child should be seen. Once the day-time temperature is gone, it does not return. If the day-time temperature ever goes away and then comes back again, the child needs to be examined.
     Finally, any child under one month of age who has a fever needs to be seen by their caregiver.