All My Children

Three medications that are available without prescription can help reduce an infant’s or child’s fever. Before using them, keep these things in mind:

• The primary reason to give these drugs will normally be to make your child more comfortable. They will not make an infection disappear more quickly. If your child has a fever but is otherwise contented, you don’t need to give her anything to make the fever go away.
• The fever’s response to any of these medications is not an indication of the severity of the illness. One dose may only reduce the fever 2° or 3^°F over a couple of hours, or it may merely limit the height of an upward temperature “spike.” Don’t panic if the thermometer reading doesn’t drop right away or if it rises again after a few hours.
• Do not give medication to lower fever to a baby under three months of age without contacting your physician. In this age-group, determining the cause of the fever is far more important than lowering the temperature itself.

There are several medications on the market that can help lower fever:

• Acetaminophen (Tylenol, Panadol, Liquiprin, Tempra, and other brands) is available in a variety of oral and rectal suppository preparations and may be given every four hours as needed. While this medication has been widely and safely used for a number of years, an accidental overdose can be potentially dangerous.

Most acetaminophen products list recommended doses based on age, but if possible, it is better to determine the dosage based on weight, especially if your infant or child is above or below average.

• Ibuprofen (Children’s Motrin, Children’s Advil, and other brands) has the potential advantage of a longer-lasting effect—six to eight hours per dose, as opposed to acetaminophen’s four to six.

• Aspirin is effective in lowering temperature and relieving aches andpains BUT it is not recommended for this purpose in anyone younger than twenty-one years of age because of its link to an uncommon but serious disorder called Reye’s syndrome.

Febrile Convulsions

Febrile convulsions—seizures precipitated by fever—occur in 2 to 5 percent of children sometime between four months and five years of age. These seizures often begin early in an acute illness, usually during the rapid upswing of a fever (which doctors refer to as a spike). In fact, an infant or child whom you find hot and cranky with a 104^°F temperature is not likely to have a seizure in the immediate future because with rare exception she has already arrived at the high temperature without incident. (Temperature spikes tend to occur so quickly that it is unlikely that you will be able to take a temperature while one is actually taking place.)

The first of these concerns—and the question of whether the mother of one or more young children should be employed outside of the home—is by far the more complicated, emotional, and controversial of the two.

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Children Caution: Using Medications to Lower Temperature

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