As soon as the child has a fever, the parents are very nervous and always want to cool the child as soon as possible. Some township clinics will use the "enema" method to cool down children.
In August 2018, half-year-old Xiao You fell ill with a fever, and after the traditional Chinese medicine enema used in the village health center to reduce the fever, his body improved slightly, but soon his body temperature rose again, and the fever continued to rise. Later, when he was transferred to the ICU, he had already suffered multiple organ damage throughout his body, developed severe acute kidney failure, and needed to be replaced to save his life.
A small cold, but because of the wrong cooling method, ruined a child, a family.
But until now, many parents are still using "enemas" to reduce their children's fever.
The so-called enema fever reduction is to inject liquid or medicine into the intestinal tube through the child's anus, so that the drug is absorbed through the intestine and used to achieve the purpose of reducing fever.
In fact, enema fever reduction is a completely unscientific way of reducing fever, and it has not been recognized by major authoritative guidelines, which is not only limited in effect, but also very dangerous.
Many so-called "doctors" will tell parents that enema fever is not metabolized by the child's liver, so there are no side effects.
But in fact, when drugs are injected into the rectum through the anus and absorbed into the bloodstream, most of them need to be metabolized through the liver, not only oral drugs.
In addition, enema fever has other harms to children that cannot be ignored:
Improper operation of the enema can easily damage the intestinal mucosa and cause intestinal infections
Your child's intestinal tubes are very fragile. In the enema process, if not handled properly, it is easy to cause intestinal mucosal damage, and serious intestinal bleeding, perforation, and even life-threatening.
In addition, it is easy to cause bacteria in the intestine to enter the deep intestine with the liquid medicine, causing infection.
Some parents will take the way of filling their children with ice water to reduce fever, which is also not advisable.
Although ice water can play a rapid cooling effect in a short period of time, it will bring great pain to children, and this pain cannot be borne by many adults.
At the same time, ice water has great irritation to the stomach and intestines, which can cause children to spasm, rapid contraction of blood vessels, rapid energy consumption and other serious discomfort, so it is not recommended.
The wrong dosage of the enema and the wrong choice of drugs will irritate the stomach and intestines and cause organ damage
Pediatric medication is special, and the dose of medication needs to be accurately calculated according to the child's weight.
However, the medication in the case of enemas is not easy to control the dose of the drug. At the same time, we can't accurately judge how much the child absorbs the drug, and the combination of various factors can easily lead to damage to the child's liver, kidney, heart and other internal organs because the dose of the drug is too large.
In addition, because the intestinal wall of children is very fragile, enema drugs are likely to seriously irritate the child's stomach and intestines, and can also cause problems such as local ulcers, intestinal damage, and even perforation.
This may result in gastrointestinal dysbacteriosis and even anaphylactic shock
It is worth noting that if the composition of the medicine given to the child is too complicated, it is easy to cause the child to have anaphylactic shock.
For example, it contains cephalosporin antibiotics, dexamethasone, ribavirin, as well as honeysuckle, banlan root, hyacinth, chai hu and other ingredients. And if you do not undergo antibiotic skin tests before taking the drug, it is easy to cause allergic reactions when used directly.
So, what should parents do if a child develops a fever?
Babies over 2 months of age, temperature ≥ 39.0 °C, oral temperature ≥ 38.5 °C, armpit temperature ≥ 38.2 °C, or due to fever there is discomfort and depression, oral symptomatic drugs are a safer way to cool.
For example, antipyretic drugs such as oral ibuprofen or acetaminophen. If necessary, the physical method of scrubbing the body with warm water multiple times can also be used to assist in cooling down.
The consensus of most medical guidelines is that infants under 3 months of age are advised to take them to the hospital immediately if they have a fever, and if they are over 3 months old, they can take fever reducers first.
Oral antipyretic drugs and antipyretic suppositories have a fever-reducing effect, time of action and side effects are close, so they can be taken orally as much as possible; if the child strongly refuses to take the medicine, there will be serious vomiting as soon as the medicine is taken, then consider the use of antipyretic suppositories.
There are many possible factors that cause children's fever, we must clarify the cause of fever with the help of professional doctors, and symptomatic treatment is the root of solving the problem of children's fever.
In summary, the risk of enema fever reduction is very large, parents must be cautious, not easy to try. Choosing the correct, safe and effective anti-fever method and anti-fever drugs is the most important thing parents should do, and must not harm the child for a temporary effect.