A Consultant Paediatrician Dr. Abdurrazzaq Alege, has cautioned parents against engaging in harmful practices and interventions when their children have a febrile convulsion.
According to the Paediatrician at the Nephrology Division, Federal Teaching Hospital, Katsina, putting a spoon, hand, cow urine concoction, and rags in the mouth of a convulsing baby could cause more problems for the child.
Such harmful practices, he warned, could even result in the death of the child.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Newsmen, Dr. Alege, said there are practices in Nigeria that people do that are very harmful when a child is convulsing.
These harmful practices, he said, may not only cause complications for the child but could also introduce infections to the body of the child.
The child expert said though there are different forms of convulsion, the most common one in children, he said, is called a febrile convulsion, adding that it is often associated with fever.
A febrile seizure (febrile convulsion), according to Mayo Clinic – a medical center focused on integrated health care, education, and research is a convulsion in a child that’s caused by a fever.
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“The fever is often from an infection. Febrile seizures occur in young, healthy children who have normal development and haven’t had any neurological symptoms before.
“It can be frightening when your child has a febrile seizure. Fortunately, febrile seizures are usually harmless, only last a few minutes, and typically don’t indicate a serious health problem”, the clinic said.
Dr. Alege explained, “Seizures convulsion could be of any form but the commonest one that we see that happens to children is called febrile convulsion.
“It is a convulsion that is associated with fever. It is known to occur in children between the ages of six months of age up to five years of age. It is usually common as a result of a high body temperature.
“When the baby’s body temperature gets high and gets so high to a particular point, then the child tends to convulse (hyperpyrexia).
“A baby that has high body temperature, tends to convulse. Febrile convulsion commonly runs in families (genetic).
“It is so rampant in our society once a child convulses, everybody starts to panic.
“Typically, what causes complications in convulsion most times is not necessarily the convulsion that child had or even sometimes it may not be the fever.
“The common complications that occur are typically what we do in terms of interventions – the bad practices.
Dr. Alege pointed out that a child that has a fever either caused by malaria, typhoid infection, ear infection, or pneumonia could have a febrile convulsion.
According to him, before attending to the cause of a febrile convulsion, it is important to reduce the body temperature of the child because it is associated with fever.
“When the temperature is taken care of quickly, most times the child will not get to that point as to convulse.
“If this is done, we can prevent the child from convulsion and even if he has a risk factor for it in the family.
“But the problem we have in our society is that most people do not have a thermometer while some of those who have it do not know the normal temperature range.
“Everybody believes that once you touch the body and it’s not warm, the child does not have a fever.
“Children will not show warmth until the temperature is already very high,” he said.
The paediatrician said parents need to be aware that part of convulsion is the clenching of the teeth, adding that febrile convulsion does not last more than 15 minutes.
The child health expert said, “People believe that once a child is clenching the teeth during a convulsion, the child will suffocate and die.
“They don’t want that child to clench the teeth and because of that, they put all sorts of things in the child’s mouth.
“You will see the mother even putting her hands in the baby’s mouth. This alone can cause problems. They bring rags and put them in the baby’s mouth.
“The commonest thing that they do is that they use a spoon, anything that is around, they just want to put it in the baby’s mouth.
“This will cause a lot of problems in the sense that the child in the process may end with injuries because what you are putting in his mouth may injure his tongue and his teeth. These could also introduce infections to the body of the child.
“They will give the child cow urine concoction. And cow urine concoction causes profound hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) which on its own can even result in loss of consciousness and death.”
He warned that all these harmful practices would increase recovery time besides being inimical to child survival.
On what parents are supposed to do when a child is convulsing, the paediatrician explained, “Once a child is convulsing, lay the child on the left side with the head turned to the side.
“The head should not be turned up. Loosen the child’s clothes, and remove sharp objects around him. Allow the child to convulse, holding the child down will cause more problems.
“It doesn’t last more than 15 minutes and before it gets to 10 minutes, parents are already on their way to the hospital or any nearby healthcare centre.”
Continuing, he said, “For families that have children with a history of convulsion, the mothers should have at least paracetamol at home. The type of paracetamol that is recommended is rectal paracetamol.
“Once it happens, she should quickly get rectal paracetamol and put it inside the anus of the child. It works the same way as injection paracetamol will do.
“It works faster than just giving it into the mouth because it goes directly from the into the blood.
“Once the seizures are controlled, the child should be quickly taken to the hospital for proper medical evaluation and treatment.”
In a 2022 article published in Springer Open Access Journal, titled: “Perspectives of febrile convulsions among parents: A local cross-sectional study”, the authors said febrile convulsions occur when the body temperature of babies reached more than 38 °C.
According to the authors, most parents do not properly respond to febrile convulsion management.
“Most parents, especially those who had a febrile convulsion child for the first time, could be terrified as they consider it a lethal condition.
“It is of paramount importance that knowledge about febrile should be available to all society members,” the authors said.
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