What should I do if my child has a low temperature?

As children grow, their bodies are in the development stage and their body resistance is relatively low. Hypothermia is a common phenomenon in children. Hypothermia is very harmful to children's bodies and can easily lead to physical illness. Children with hypothermia need to be checked in time, and they need to live in a warm environment and pay attention to their diet.

What to do if your child has low temperature

Generally speaking, a body temperature below 36 degrees is considered hypothermia. Young children are very susceptible to hypothermia because their central temperature regulation system is not yet fully developed and their subcutaneous fat is thin and easily dissipates heat.

Infants with hypothermia generally show certain symptoms, often crying softly, refusing to feed, having cold skin, low blood sugar levels, and lumps in the subcutaneous fat.

If infants with hypothermia are not taken care of in time, they will become weak and have poor resistance, and in severe cases, their lives may be threatened. Therefore, once parents find that their baby's body temperature is too low, they must take measures to raise the temperature or seek medical help. Generally speaking, there are two ways to raise body temperature, and we should use them in combination.

1. Keep warm: The room temperature should not be lower than 20 degrees. Make sure your baby wears thick and warm clothes and has a cotton hat. It is best to place one or several hot water bottles outside the cotton hat for warmth. Pay special attention when changing clothes for your baby.

2. Pay attention to strengthening nutrition: Appropriate supplementation of glucose can enhance the baby's ability to resist cold to a certain extent and help the body temperature return to normal.

Dangers of hypothermia in children

Hypothermia can result in acceleration of all physiological functions, including the cardiovascular and respiratory systems, nerve conduction, mental acuity, neuromuscular reaction time, and metabolic rate. As a young child, hypothermia caused by immersing the whole body in near-freezing water can protect the brain from low oxygen.

A decrease in core body temperature can cause apathy, drowsiness, clumsiness, confusion, irritability, hallucinations, slowed or stopped breathing, and a slowed, irregular, and finally stopped heartbeat. But as long as the patient is not warm, he should not be considered dead.

A rectal temperature < 34°C helps differentiate the disorder from similar symptoms due to heart disease, diabetic coma, insulin overdose, cerebrovascular accident, or drug abuse. Ordinary clinical thermometers cannot measure very low body temperatures caused by hypothermia, and special hypothermia measuring instruments must be used. If there is only a standard clinical thermometer, the mercury column cannot rise above 34°C, indicating hypothermia.