When should you take a sick child to the doctor?
Last month, a Crumlin intensive care consultant said wards were “overwhelmed” with children ill with flu and RSV.
Some people call the doctor at the first sign of ill health but others wait until they are sure their child needs medical attention.
“Parental instinct is really important,” consultant pediatrician Dr Niamh Lynch told The Hard Shoulder.
“If you have a sort of niggling feeling that things just aren’t quite right, then it’s really important that you don’t ignore that feeling.”
There are, however, a number of key symptoms you can check to gauge the wellbeing of your child.
“In terms of looking at a child in front of you who may have been a little bit sniffly for a couple of days, hasn’t been drinking a lot or maybe has been vomiting, the main thing you want to be watching for is controlling their temperature and managing their hydration,” Dr Lynch said.
“A temperature that goes on for more than three days, we would be a bit suspicious of and you’d definitely want to get that checked out.
“A temperature that is very hard to control, so you’re giving [them] calpol and nurofen and it just isn’t coming down - that’s very worrying and needs to get checked out as well.”
Nappy changes
Another helpful indicator of a child’s health is how many times they need their nappies changed in a day.
Dr Lynch suggested counting when they well and then comparing when they fall sick.
“That’s a sign of how well and hydrated they are,” she said.
“Then obviously, if the wet nappy starts to fall off, that means they’re not getting enough liquid and they’re not producing enough urine.
“If the wet nappies falls to less than half of normal, that’s a sign that you should get them checked out as well.”
RSV
Regarding the RSV wave, Dr Lynch said things are “getting a little bit better” and the health service might have passed the peak of the virus.
“It doesn’t mean that we can sort of relax about it,” she said.
“But it doesn’t mean you can’t get RSV… so it doesn’t mean that we can relax about it.
“Sometimes you get a second peak later on in the season.”
You can listen back here:
Main image: Sick child lying in bed with thermometer and a teddy bear. Image: Oksana Bratanova / Alamy Stock Photo
