Castlebar Health Newsletter
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Childhood Infections
Health Index
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Childhood Infections:
How to:
Take your child's temperature
MUMPS | |
| Incubation period: | About 7 days before the running nose and head cold, about 10 days before the appearance of the rash. | Distinctive features: | The rash begins behind the ears, spreading to the face and then downwards to the body and lower limbs. It consists of dark red spots, which run together to make blotchy areas. The eyes are reddened and the child is feverish. | Duration: | 4 days after the rash begins, it ceases to be infectious. | Nursing: | Make sure the child has plenty to drink. If feverish cool with a damp cloth and take off blankets. Persistent severe earache or inflamed eyes require medical attention. | top |
GERMAN MEASLES (RUBELLA) | |
| Incubation period: | 16-21 days | Early symptoms: | A slightly sore throat and mild fever at the beginning. The rash is often the first sign of the disease. The neck glands are swollen and sore. | Distinctive features: | A rash appears around the face and neck, spreading to body, consisting of pink, flat spots, which merge together to give a "peachbloom" appearance. Fever. | Duration: | The child is infectious from a few days before the symptoms appear until 1 day after they disappear. All infected children should be kept away from pregnant women. | Nursing: | This is usually a mild disease and there is no specific treatment. | top |
WHOOPING COUGH | Incubation period: | 7-21 days. Starts with a mild cough. Usually about 10 days before it becomes persistent. | Early symptoms: | Nasal discharge, sneezing, sore eyes and mild cough which later becomes spasmodic, with paroxysms ending with a "whoop" and/or vomiting. | Distinctive features: | The "whoop" when the disease is fully developed makes the diagnosis obvious. Hurried breathing indicates the onset of pneumonia - this may occur early in young children who have not been immunised. | Nursing: | The small infant requires special care during paroxysms, and should be lifted out of the cot and held downwards until the spasm ceases. Older children should be calmed and reassured, but can cope with their own spasms. Small frequent meals and plenty of fluid should be given. | top |
CHICKEN POX | Incubation period: | About 14 days | Early symptoms: | : First sign of illness is usually a rash appearing on the child's trunk, arms and legs. Fever. | Distinctive features: | The rash is in the form of itchy spots that become fluid filled blisters which dry out and form scabs. There may be several "crops" of spots. | Duration: | The child ceases to be infectious 6 days after the last crop appears. | Nursing: | It is difficult to prevent a child from scratching the spots. Try calamine lotion or soda added to bath water to soothe the itching. Keep fingernails short. | top |
MEASLES | Incubation period: | About 7 days before the running nose and head cold, about 10 days before the appearance of the rash. | Distinctive features: | The rash begins behind the ears, spreading to the face and then downwards to the body and lower limbs. It consists of dark red spots, which run together to make blotchy areas. The eyes are reddened and the child is feverish. | Duration: | 4 days after the rash begins, it ceases to be infectious | Nursing: | Make sure the child has plenty to drink. If feverish cool with a damp cloth and take off blankets. Persistent severe earache or inflamed eyes require medical attention. | top |
TAKING YOUR CHILD'S TEMPERATURE
Every home needs a thermometer because children so often get raised temperatures that may need to be monitored. The newer digital thermometers are very easy to use and to read, but most people still have the old mercury ones, on which you have to "read off" the figure which the mercury in the central column reaches.
You can also buy fever strips from O' Donnells, which you apply to the child's forehead and then read off a reasonable approximation of the temperature. To read a mercury thermometer, you may need a magnifying glass if you are long-sighted, but in practise most people are able to read the figures easily. Viewed from the side, the thermometer glass forms a type of lens, so that the column of mercury appears much wider than it really is, and so is easy to see.
In some countries, the figures are still in Fahrenheit degrees, but today the thermometers manufactured in most countries are tabulated in degrees Centigrade (degrees Celsius).
Your thermometer will be marked in degrees, reading from left to right. The Fahrenheit thermometers read from about 94ºF to about 107ºF; Centigrade from about 34ºC to about 42ºC. In between the degree marks, there are smaller lines, which represent either fifths (0.2) or tenths (0.1) of a degree.
You'll see that at the normal mark there's an arrow, or the letter 'N' or both. On Fahrenheit thermometers, this is at either 98.4 or 98.6. On Centigrade instruments, it's at either 36.9 or 37.
Before using the thermometer, make sure that the mercury column is down below the lower end of the scale. If it isn't, then shake it down. You do this by taking hold of the upper end of the thermometer (the one at the other end from the bulb) and snapping the instrument down sharply four or five times with a firm wristy action.
Having shaken the thermometer down, put it in the child's mouth, with the bulb under his tongue. In the case of younger children you'll have to use the armpit - just hold the child's arm gently but firmly across his chest or tummy so that the bulb is kept warm under his arm.
Although the instructions for many thermometers still say "half minute", make sure the child always keeps the thermometer in the mouth or under the arm for at least two minutes. At the end of that time, withdraw it and read it. After reading it, shake it down, as before. Wash it in soap and cold water, and return it to its case.
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