J. Rose Online

As a mother, I hate seeing my boys sick with the cold or flu. They just lay there on the bed feeling down and out. Not running around making a lot of noise, playing on the computer or with their friends. It's even harder to look at when they are babies.

Early in the last week, baby C (my middle son) came down with something and a fever broke out. He complained of his head hurting a lot and his throat feeling sore. It would hurt when he swallowed. It took a few days for baby C's fever to die down. We just thought it was a cold or flu bug and didn't think too much of it.

Then on Friday, both baby A (my oldest son) and baby E (my youngest, 15 months old) broke out in a fever. Mr. Man went home early from work to tend to the 2 boys. I ended up getting home about 5:30PM.

Both baby A and baby E were resting after taking some fever reducing medicine (tylenol). About 7:30 PM, baby E woke up from his nap and he was crankier than ever. Both Mr. Man and I tended to him. While I was cooking dinner, Mr. Man had him on his lap watching You Tube videos.

Then my mother in law came home and took baby E to her room to try and help comfort him. Next thing we hear is my mother in law screaming for us. Baby E's body started convulsing. Mr. Man ran to her room and brought him out to the kitchen and tried what he could to get baby E to stop.

While this was happening, I frantically ran around looking for the cell phone to call 911. Once baby E stopped convulsing, his body went limp like he stopped breathing and became unconscious. I was on the phone with the 911 operator and she was telling me instructions on what to do.

First and foremost, she told us to calm down. She can hear my mother in law screaming in the background and Mr. Man yelling at baby E to wake up.

I calmly told Mr. Man he needs to calm down, take off all of baby E's clothing and lay him on the floor to his left side. Baby E stopped breathing and Mr. Man then started CPR on him. After a few breaths and a couple of chest pumps, baby E started to softly cry.

And a few moments after that the paramedics showed up. Then baby E's cries got louder. The paramedics started asking us questions like his age and what exactly happened. After the ok from the paramedics I scooped up baby E into my arm and got on the gurney because they were taking us to the hospital.

This whole ordeal lasted about 6-8 minutes at most, from the time that baby E started convulsing to the time the paramedics showed up. It felt like it was in slow motion, though.

What exactly happened to baby E?

Baby E had a Febrile Seizure. A febrile seizure, also known as a fever fit or febrile convulsion, is a convulsion associated with a significant rise in body temperature. They most commonly occur in children between the ages of 6 months and 6 years and are twice as common in boys as in girls

As it turns out my boys had a throat infection which brought on the fever and sore throat.

And because baby E's temperature shot up so fast, his body reacted by having a seizure.

Once we got to the hospital, they checked baby E's temperature and it was at 102.6 degrees! They immediately gave him tylenol and ibuprofen to help bring the fever down. I just sat there with baby E comforting him the best I could. About an hour and a half later his temperature dropped to 100.2 degrees and we were able to take him home.

We had to monitor his fever throughout the night and the next day and we were able to get him back to normal temps by Sunday. The throat infection he has is called Herpangina which is a throat infection brought on by the Coxsackie group A viruses.

Basically the way it is brought on is when you don't thoroughly wash your hands after using the restroom and you touch your mouth or eat. Which is why it is common amongst children ages 3-10 years old. It also can be passed on to others by contact. So it is easily contagious.

Right now, since baby C had it first, he's doing a whole lot better. We're thinking it could have been passed on by the boys' friend who was here the week prior to the boys getting sick. But you never know. Sometimes my boys are lazy and they forget to wash their hands. Which is why it is important to keep pushing your kids no matter what on good hygiene. It is tough because you are not watching them all the time so all you can do is remind them and make sure they practice thorough hand washing.

Baby A is doing a lot better now too. He does complain of a sore throat still. But only thing we can do is wait out the infection since it a viral infection and not a bacterial infection which bacterial infections can be cured with antibiotics.

As for baby E, him being the baby, it hit him the hardest. His little body couldn't handle the infection which was the onset of his high fever which in turn led to a febrile seizure. Now that his fever is under control, the sore throat is what's bothering him the most. From what my older boys told me, it hurts when they swallow so that's basically what baby E is going through. It's hard for him to eat and drink and he's crying all the time about it. He hasn't been able to get much rest because I think the pain keeps waking him up.

He also has been holding his saliva in. He keeps his mouth closed and it looks like he has something in his mouth and when we open his mouth a fountain of drool comes out. Poor baby E. We've been giving him cold milk and water to try and keep him hydrated, but sometimes even that doesn't help.

This is the first time something like this has ever happened to Mr. Man and I. We didn't go through anything like this with my older two. It goes to show that all kids are totally different no matter how many kids you have!

All I want to say is that I hope that other parents don't have to go through that. But being that it is common (proven by the responses I got from my friends on my Facebook) amongst kids 6 months to 7 years of age, here are some tips on getting your baby's fever down.

When a fever breaks:

- Do NOT bundle your child. We made the mistake of doing that because we thought he was shivering because he was cold. By doing so, you're wrapping up the only way heat can escape from a person's body. And that is through their skin. If you need to, have your child in only his diaper or underwear.

- Call your doctor or doctor's nurses station to find out how much tylenol or ibuprofen to give your child. The amount on the back of the medicine bottle is a general number. It depends on their age and weight. Apparently, the amount we gave baby E was not enough as we thought it was.

- Place room temperature rags on your child's head or give your child a lukewarm bath to help cool them down. But with this method be very careful that they don't get too cold from the water as this can cause them to shiver. Shivering raises their body temperature thus defeating the purpose of cooling them down in the first place.

- On the medicine bottle, it tells you to give them another dosage every 4-6 hours. Try giving them doses every 3 - 3 1/2 hours. Reason being is because at the end of the 6 hours the medicine has worn off and the body is getting hot again. If you give them another dose before the medicine initially wears off it will help to keep the temperature down. It will also make sure that the medicine is doing it's job.

But if you should have to go through what Mr. Man and I did, then here are some tips on what to do.

If your child is having a seizure:

- Lay your child on the ground so that he cannot fall or hurt himself.

- Turn him to their side to allow secretions or vomit to drain from their mouth.

- If the seizure lasts for more than 5 minutes, call an ambulance or go to the emergency room at once.

- If the seizure is due to high fever, take off all their clothes to help cool them down immediately.

I am just so glad that baby E is ok. It was a very scary ordeal. I mean the sight of your child's eyes closing and his body going limp..... I can't even think about it right now.

Disclaimer: I am not a doctor nor am I a nurse. I am just a mother sharing my experience with Febrile Seizure and a 15 month old baby. The information used in this post was from the literature that the ER doctor gave me on my visit to the emergency room.