Dr. Komarovsky about febrile convulsions in children

All moms and dads know that high fever is dangerous for a baby in the first place by the development of convulsive manifestations. Convulsions associated with temperature are called febrile.

Evgeny Komarovsky, a reputable pediatrician, tells how dangerous they are and how parents act.

Febrile seizures, according to Yevgeny Komarovsky, are peculiar only to children. In such a violent way, the brains of adults usually do not react to fever and fever. However, in children, physiological age-related hypersensitivity to high heat is quite likely.

The most often unpleasant complication of high body temperature develops in the smallest ones - newborns, infants and children under 6 years old. The older the child becomes, the less risk that the rise in temperature will cause convulsive seizures..

Calling the problem common would be wrong. The likelihood of a convulsive syndrome is actually low. According to statistics, only one out of twenty children at “risky” age has a predisposition to febrile seizures.. But those parents whose children have experienced this at least once need to be extremely attentive, because with every third little patient they can return with the next illness with a fever.

It should be noted that it has not yet been possible to establish the exact causes and risks of children's febrile convulsions, and all that is said and written about them is only hypotheses that have not yet been scientifically confirmed.

The reasons for the development of such a convulsive syndrome are quite simple: due to overheating of the whole organism, including the brain, the type of signals that the brain sends to the muscles is disturbed. Because of this, involuntary muscle contractions occur. More science can not describe them, because experts have not yet been able to achieve a common opinion on this issue.

In particular, the question of whether febrile seizures in early childhood increase the likelihood of developing epilepsy at an older age is not clarified. Evgeny Komarovsky claims that most children perfectly “outgrow” this problem and do not become epileptics. There are other doctors who say the opposite.

All specialists speaking of febrile seizures, are unanimous in that it is based on insufficient maturity of the nervous system of young children. As you grow the problem is solved by 6-7 yearsAs the nervous system becomes stronger and its functioning more reliable.

No need to believe that as soon as the child's temperature rises to 38.0 degrees, his arms and legs muscles may begin to contract. High temperature has yet to lead to overheating of internal organs, and therefore it takes from several hours to a day for the development and initial manifestation of seizures. If nothing happened in a day, then most likely it will not happen.

The attack is similar to a generalized epileptic seizure. In the vast majority of children, it proceeds typically, lasts about 15 minutes. A series of attacks can last up to half an hour.

If the duration of each attack is longer than 15 minutes, they speak of atypical febrile convulsions.

• The first sign is a loss of consciousness.
• Almost immediately, simultaneously with this, a strong spasm of the muscles of the upper and lower extremities occurs, and after them - the whole body.
• There is an increased tone of the occipital muscles, and the patient fits into a very characteristic and specific position in which he throws his head back and arches the back of the arch.
• The skin of a sick child will quickly turn pale, the nasolabial triangle and sponges may slightly turn blue.

The attack also ends in succession: at first, the baby relaxes the back, the head returns to its place, it assumes its normal position (posture with its head thrown back), then the muscles of the body and limbs gradually relax.

At the end of consciousness returns, the skin becomes normal color. After the attack, the small dog doesn’t remember anything, he feels very weak and wants to sleep very much.

Yevgeny Komarovsky encourages parents to be attentive and observant, especially if the child has previously had similar seizures.

He will need first aid and it will have to be provided to parents.

• Pay attention to the time of the onset of convulsive seizure, write it down to inform the doctor and ambulance ambulance that you need to call immediately.
• Turn the baby on the flank. Use your finger to check if the mouth is clean, so that the child cannot choke or suffocate.
• Open windows, balcony doors and rooms, all that you can, so that the baby gets a large portion of fresh air.
• Make sure that near the baby are not potentially dangerous items, which he could get hurt during convulsions. Komarovsky urges not to pinch the body of the child, not to try to limit convulsive convulsions, because from such parental actions to injuries, it is a stone's throw.

This is where the capabilities of the parents end. The rest must be done by qualified medical professionals.

During an attack, parents should not do anything extra that could be dangerous for the child.

• So, it is not necessary to splash ice water on the child or dip it in a bath filled with such water. It is fraught with a spasm of blood vessels.
• You can not try to straighten your limbs, if they are cramped.
• The most common mistake is trying to push a spoon into the baby’s mouth. Parents do this solely out of good intentions so that the child does not swallow the tongue. This is impossible to do, says Yevgeny Komarovsky, and therefore there is no use for shoving a spoon. And there is harm - the child is broken teeth, mucous membranes are injured.
• No need to try to do artificial respiration. Consciousness in the baby is not, but the breath is saved.
• But the swallowing movements in the attack to the child are definitely inaccessible, hence the conclusion that it is dangerous and criminal to try to water the baby.

For most children, febrile seizures do not need treatment, says Dr. Komarovsky.But during an attack, doctors may use some drugs whose task is to stop it. These are usually tranquilizers or benzodiazepines. The child, especially the small one, is tried to be taken to the hospital to observe for several days, because it is possible that the seizures may recur.

Dr. Komarovsky sure that There is absolutely no need to stuff the baby with tons of barbiturates after such an incident, allegedly to prevent seizures in the future.. Earlier in medicine, indeed, there was such an approach, and long courses of treatment with antiepileptic drugs were practiced. Today it became obvious that drugs of this kind do more harm than good.

Komarovsky recommends paying attention to the prevention of this phenomenon.

And it is quite simple.

• If the baby is sick, then you need to by all means not allow the temperature to rise above 38.0 degrees. To do this, parents invented antipyretic drugs to help. If you do not manage to bring the temperature down yourself, you should call an ambulance.
• A child with any illness associated with high fever should not be wrapped up in warm clothes, he should be stripped to his underpants and left in this form until the temperature drops.

Opinion of Dr. Komarovsky about febrile convulsions - in the next video.