Your Child Has a 1 in 25 Chance of Having a Febrile Seizure. Prepare Yourself BEFORE it Happens.

First of all, I'd like to apologize for my delayed posting time. These past two weeks have been hell for me. First, I slept in my contacts for the first time in years because I was out of solution, which resulted in agonizing ulcers in my eyes for at least a week. Second, my daughter caught the worst cold she's ever had, and we experienced the traumatic event of a Febrile Seizure. You can read my experience below, or you can scroll further down to read up on the facts of Febrile Seizures and educate yourself on how to prevent and treat them.

For parents with children of any age, watching our little angels suffer the symptoms of any sickness is terrible to endure. My daughter, Melody, is nearly two years old. She had caught a cold and for nearly an entire week, she was a miserable blob of mucous and fever with a throat ripping cough that wore her to exhaustion. I had considered taking her to the doctor, as this was her worst cold yet, but my online research informed me that there was really nothing to be done for a common cold aside from vapor rub and steam.

The night of the incident, my daughter had taken a late nap and when she woke with a high fever, I gave her some children's Advil and sat her beside me to watch some cartoons.

I had just started a new movie on Netflix when I looked to her and realized that she was not watching the television, but rather staring at nothing with half-lidded eyes. My heart broke for my weary, little baby. I patted her knee and spoke to her, but she did not respond. I said her name and gave her leg a small shake, but to my heart-dropping horror, her head drooped to the side and her eyes glazed over.

I remember this moment with more clarity than with what followed. I called out her name louder, lifting her head and forcing her to look at me with her unfocused eyes. When it became unmistakably clear that my little girl was completely unresponsive, I shouted for my mother. The sound was loud enough to catch Melody's attention; she snapped out of her trance and her wide blue eyes focused on me. As I watched helplessly, my daughter's face twisted with pain and she gave one, raspy scream before she went limp and her head fell forward. It was truly something out of a horror movie.

I was gathering my limp child in my arms, careful to support her heavy head, when my mother rushed in, took one look, and ran away shouting my father's name. I stood with my baby, shouting her name as I fought to keep her head up and saw that her eyes had rolled back into her head and her mouth hung open. I began to tremble, the edges of my vision going black and fuzzy.

I'm going to lose my daughter.

My dad barged into the room when I was holding my finger beneath her nose, checking for breath. He took her from me and laid her gently on the floor, carefully adjusting her head. He pressed his ear to her heart and his finger beneath her nose as Melody began to turn a sickening blue.

My mother stood in the hallway shouting frantically at the emergency operator on the phone, stressing the danger between each answer to the operator's stream of insignificant questions about our basic demographic information. My sister was crouched down to my dad's level over Melody's head, repeating the instructions for performing CPR on an infant over the loud desperation of my mother's panic.

All the while I stood uselessly by, staring at my tiny angel on the floor and repeating the same words over and over again under my breath.

“Dear Lord, please save my baby. Please save my baby. Oh, God, please keep my child alive.”

 

Melody's eyes had rolled back into her head completely, she wasn't moving, and the skin of her round face was growing bluer by the second. I fell to the floor beside her, typing the situation into the Google search on my iPhone, searching for instructions to save my daughter. I recall my clumsy fingers gliding across my screen until I found an article that I couldn't even read due to my trembling hands and blackening, blurry vision. The paramedics were on their way, but I knew they would not arrive in time.

Melody's body began to stiffen, every flinching muscle going rigid. My father was pumping his fingers below her sternum and when he bent his head to blow a small puff of air in her mouth, a soft wheeze emanated from her lips. Her blue eyes focused once again. My dad made a noise somewhere between a gasp and a victorious shout as he lifted Melody off of the floor and held her in his lap. She faced me as he lightly pounded on her little back and I felt myself breath for the first time as she struggled to focus on me as she cried.

The rest of the night drawled on with at least eight paramedics in my living room, surrounding Melody and I in a jumbled mass of navy blue and steel briefcases filled with instruments to check her vitals. They left a very cranky Melody with a shiny gold sticker that resembled a badge and we took a trip to the ER, where the doctors and nurses performed multiple tests. The hospital staff checked her vitals again, drew blood, and worst of all, took a urine sample through the use of a catheter.

After the tests were completed and I had more than my share of holding down my screaming baby while she was pricked and prodded, we were informed that Melody had a Febrile Seizure due to a spike in her fever. Her body temperature had rose to quickly for a toddler to handle.

The next few nights were marred with fear and frequent temperature checks. Melody's room was littered with empty medicine boxes, sticky syringes, and jars of vapor rub. She recovered quickly after a long night of uninterrupted rest, and was back to her sassy little self a few days later. Though the event has passed, the trauma continues to haunt me as I remember my precious angel sitting beside me, limp and unresponsive, staring at nothing. The look of agony that crossed her face before losing consciousness.

I regret my sheer helplessness that night. I was entirely unprepared and uneducated and as I took to the web for research the next day, I felt that every parent could benefit from a little preemptive planning.

What is a Febrile Seizure?

Febrile Seizures are convulsions brought on by a high fever in infants and children. During the seizure, a child will lose consciousness, their muscles will tighten and shake, or they'll experience small tremors in selective parts of their rigid body. Most seizures last only a minute or two (though it feels like a lifetime) but some can last up to fifteen minutes. If you're child is experiencing a seizure that lasts more than a few minutes, take them to the hospital immediately.

In the event of a Febrile Seizure, what can you do?

Amidst the horror and panic, my family and I didn't know what to do. We scrambled about, called 911, and even performed light CPR. When you're child is having a seizure, none of the above is necessary. The seizure will pass, but there is nothing you can do to speed up the process.

• When it begins, be absolutely sure to check the time to monitor the length of the seizure. This is crucial. When you're thrown into a traumatic situation like this, minutes may feel like hours.
• Lay the child down in a safe environment where they can't hurt themselves, make sure nothing is in their mouth, and lay them on their stomach or side so they do not choke on their saliva.
• If the seizure persists for longer than five minutes, call the paramedics or take your child to the hospital right away.

That's it. You will feel horrifyingly helpless, but it will pass. As an added precaution, you can call the paramedics immediately so they can check your child's vital signs and give you further instruction at no cost to you, regardless of your insurance.

How can a Febrile Seizure be prevented?

It's hard to say whether or not these tactics will prove 100% effective in preventing a seizure, but we must do what we can. Febrile Seizures are the result of high fevers, so anything you can do to keep your child's body temperature at a safe rate will help. These are a few tactics I learned from the paramedics and hospital staff.

1. Monitor the child's temperature regularly with a thermometer so you can prepare for the worst and help bring the fever down.
2. There are several brands of medicine for subduing a fever in children. I prefer Children's Advil and Tylenol. If your little angel is younger than two years old, they make medicine for infants specifically, so be sure to get the box that is age appropriate. With Advil and Tylenol, you can alternate between the two to make sure that dreaded fever never has the opportunity to spike. My doctor instructed me to administer one dosage of Advil every 4-6 hours. If the fever persists within that time frame, I was to give one dosage of Tylenol every two hours in between. Apparently this is a commonly known method, but I was worried about injecting that much medicine into my baby. Rest assured, it's completely safe as long as you're using the correct dosage for the correct age and weight. As an added bonus, the medicine seemed to make my daughter lethargic and drowsy, which resulted in more uninterrupted rest for her.
3. If your child still suffers from a high fever even with the medicine, keep them cool. You can pat them down with a cold wet cloth, wrap them in a blanket and stand outside on a cool day, or run their wrists under cold water. Resist the urge to bundle them up in mountains of cozy blankets and be sure to dress them in light clothing that breathes.

Are Febrile Seizures Dangerous?

If the above methods fail, take some comfort in the fact that brief Febrile Seizures are quite common and ultimately harmless. 1 in 25 children will have a Febrile Seizure before the age of 5. These seizures have no common relation to Epilepsy (seizures without cause) or long-term brain damage. Research shows that even children who endure long Febrile Seizures (lasting up to an hour) rarely suffer from permanent side effects.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke say, “Even when seizures are very long (more than 1 hour), most children recover completely, but a few might be at risk of subsequent seizures without fever (epilepsy). In other words, between 95 and 98 percent of children who experience febrile seizures do not go on to develop epilepsy. However, although the absolute risk remains small, some groups of children--including those with cerebral palsy, delayed development, or other neurological abnormalities--have an increased risk of developing epilepsy. The type of febrile seizure also matters; children who have prolonged febrile seizures (particularly lasting more than an hour) or seizures that affect only part of the body, or that recur within 24 hours, are at a somewhat higher risk. Among children who don't have any of these risk factors, only one in 100 develops epilepsy after a febrile seizure.”

I trust this post was helpful to you and I hope that you will not experience the terrifying trauma of a Febrile Seizure in your little ones. If you do, at the very least you will be prepared and probably a lot less panic-stricken than me and my family were! Have you dealt with a Febrile Seizure in the past? Did you know what it was when it was happening? How did you handle it?

As always, I look forward to hearing from my readers. Happy parenting!

To read more on Febrile Seizures, you can check out the NIH fact sheet by clicking here.