Everyone knows that fever performs an important protective function for the body - it helps the immune system fight the invasion of foreign bacteria and viruses. However, some types of fever can be fatal to a child's body. One of these types is white fever. With her, the child has a high fever and cold limbs. If you want to know why this condition develops, how to help your baby, read this article.
What it is?
Fever by itself is not considered a disease. It develops as a defense reaction against a large number of acute infectious and inflammatory diseases. The apparatus responsible for thermoregulation reacts with heat (to special substances that penetrate from the outside - pyrogens).
Usually they are not independent substances, but components of various pathogenic microorganisms, viruses. They act at the level of the brain - shifting the point in the center of thermoregulation, which is located in the hypothalamus.
Medicine knows different types of fever, but all of them (regardless of the cause) are conventionally divided into red and pale, so designated by the main color of the skin during the disease. The second is white fever.
High temperature is necessary for the body, because during illness it stimulates the production of interferons, proteins necessary for the processes of immune defense. However, too high a heat becomes dangerous for the baby in itself.
White fever is accompanied not only by high fever, but also by impaired blood circulation, as well as an imbalance between the body's production of heat and its return. Spasm of peripheral vessels develops, and this is very dangerous, especially for babies from birth to one year.
Symptoms and Signs
White fever is a name that reveals the essence of the child's condition as fully as possible. At high temperatures, the child looks pale, his lips, nasolabial triangle acquire a bluish tint, and bluish circles appear under the eyes. A bluish vascular network can be seen on the skin, and for this feature, the skin with white fever is sometimes called "marble". Hands and feet, due to impaired blood circulation, become cold, almost icy.
Many babies, even in high heat, feel quite cheerful. In the case of white fever, everything is different - the child is very lethargic, all the symptoms of intoxication are present, he is very weak.
The pulse of the crumbs is speeded up, there may be changes in the heart rate. Children who can express their complaints in words may complain of a feeling of cold, they have pronounced chills. Blood pressure may be elevated. At temperatures above 39.0 degrees, hallucinations, clouding of consciousness may occur, the child begins to delirium, and often he has febrile convulsions.
The main and main symptom that distinguishes white fever from any other is cold hands and feet. If parents notice this, they are obliged to provide emergency care to the child. If the temperature is above 39.0 degrees, you need to call an ambulance.
An additional diagnostic measure can be considered a "pale test". If you lightly press on the skin with your thumb, with white fever, a light spot remains, which for a long time cannot restore the skin's natural color.
First aid
First aid for white fever is to warm the child's limbs, restore vascular permeability, and ensure blood flow. To do this, it is strictly forbidden to use the methods of relieving heat so popular among the people - cold rubbing and wrapping. This will only lead to even more significant heat loss, and the baby's condition will worsen. In case of pale fever, in no case should the child be rubbed with alcohol, vodka, alcohol-containing compounds, or wrapped in a cold and wet sheet.
You should call an ambulance, and while waiting for the arrival of a team of doctors, rub the child's arms and legs with light massaging movements, holding them between your palms.
You can use any heat source - a heating pad, a bottle of warm water. At the same time, they give antipyretic drugs.
For children, paracetamol-based drugs are considered optimal. You can give an anti-inflammatory nonsteroidal drug in an age-specific dosage Ibuprofen... Do not give two or more antipyretics at the same time. Aspirin and drugs based on it should be avoided, since taking it in childhood can provoke the onset of Reye's syndrome, which is severe and very life-threatening for the baby.
If, with ordinary fever, antipyretic drugs are given to children in different dosage forms (tablets, suppositories, syrups, powders), then with white fever, this list should be limited to tablets or syrups. The introduction of rectal suppositories may be ineffective due to vasoconstriction.
To eliminate vasospasm, you can give the child antispasmodic drugs. After a year - "No-shpu", up to a year - "Papaverine", but in a strict age dosage. If there is any doubt about the required amount of the drug, it is better to wait for the arrival of the doctors.
At high temperatures, doctors of the ambulance team give children a "lytic" injection, it includes both an antispasmodic (usually "Papaverine"), and an anesthetic and antipyretic "Analgin"... Sometimes antihistamines are added to the lytic injection - for example, "Suprastin" (to reduce swelling of the mucous membranes and prevent the development of croup, edema and severe complications).
Before the arrival of the ambulance, it is imperative to provide warmth, but not to overheat the child so that the fever does not begin to intensify. In addition, you should drink plenty of warm drinks for the child. This will help reduce the risk of dehydration and febrile seizures. If the child refuses to drink on his own, you need to use a syringe without a needle and pour in the drink drip (or give the baby to drink with a teaspoon).
Forcing a child with white fever to eat is a parental crime. Firstly, the baby has absolutely no appetite, and secondly, the body needs strength to fight the infection that caused the fever, and not to digest food. That is why nature came up with everything in such a way that the appetite in case of illness is one of the first to disappear and appears one of the last.
Treatment
Usually, it is recommended to give antipyretics to children at a temperature of 38.5 to 39.0 degrees. However, in the case of white fever, it is impossible to hesitate to provide assistance (including medication). Even if the thermometer has not yet approached 38.5, you still need to give an antipyretic and call an ambulance.
The most prompt response should be to the appearance of the so-called cold white fever in infants, in children under three years of age, in babies with impaired central nervous system functions, with neurological diagnoses, in children who have previously suffered from convulsions at least once, as well as in children with diseases and defects of cardio-vascular system.
It should be noted that the temperature in white fever decreases slightly more slowly after taking medications than in the case of red fever. Sometimes you need to wait more than an hour and a half. That is why it is best to immediately call a team of doctors.
White fever does not need specific treatment. When the acute stage, which is dangerous from the point of view of the onset of seizures and dehydration, is stopped, the doctor will prescribe a treatment that corresponds to the main diagnosis.
White fever usually accompanies the following diseases: SARS, influenza, sinusitis, otitis media, bronchiolitis, pneumonia, pharyngitis, pyelonephritis, meningitis, chickenpox, measles. It is also an inadequate response of the child's body to the post-vaccination period.
For viral infections, the doctor will prescribe symptomatic treatment, to relieve the symptoms of fever - antipyretics. In case of bacterial diseases, he will prescribe antibiotics while taking antipyretic drugs.
It is categorically impossible to do inhalations (especially steam), rub the child with badger fat, make warming compresses (except for dry heat on the limbs in the acute stage), practice cold and cool baths. All this is resolved after the temperature has dropped.
In this video, Dr. Komarovsky talks about emergency care for a child's fever.
