What Moms Should Know About Febrile Seizures

I'm sitting on the couch one evening, having a little chat with my mom, while my 2 year old lies on the floor and watches Peter Pan.  Something on the floor catches my eye, and I'm stunned. 

I see my daughter, completely unconcious, twitching, shaking, and drooling on the floor.  Her whole body moves uncontrollably. 

I'm paralyzed, and all I could do is shout, "Mom!" as I point to Isabelle. 

My mother springs into action, cradling Izzy's head in her lap for several minutes as Isabelle finishes her seizure.  My husband grabs the ear thermometer, which registers a temp over 103.  Fifteen minutes prior, it was 101. 

We debated whether to call 911 or not, but ended up jumping in the car and heading to the local ER.


What I just described is one of the scariest scenes a parent could witness.  Even medical professionals say that watching someone have a seizure is a terrifying and helpless feeling, especially when it's your own child. 

That said, it's completely within the range of "normal," and febrile seizures are typically harmless.  Knowing how to handle them before they happen to your child can help you to respond appropriately and have a little less fear, should this ever happen to one of your children.

What is a febrile (fever) seizure?
A febrile seizure occurs when a child has a rapid increase in body temperature.  In Izzy's case, her temperature jumped from 101 to 103.5 in a span of 15 minutes.  The seizures often happen before you even realize that your child has had a fever.  As our pediatrician explained, while drawing out a graph representing the trend of a typical fever, a febrile seizure usually happens during the onset of a fever, as it is rising.

What are the consequences?
Febrile seizures are not connected to epilepsy, and few children with febrile seizures will go on to become epileptic.  Fever seizures affect 2-5% of all children, and child who is prone to these seizures will generally outgrow them by the age of 5.  These seizures do not cause brain damage or any other longterm problems; the only danger is the safety of the child during and after the seizure.  In the words of my pediatrician, the greatest danger to the child are parents who do not put the child in a carseat on the way to the emergency room.  A child who is completely unconscious should still be latched in safely, in the event of an accident.  Even I, Mrs. Safety, debated for half a second if I should put Izzy into her carseat, since she was a limp rag.  But I latched her in anyway.

How should a parent handle a seizure?
There's not much you can do besides protect the child's head.  Roll them onto their left side and keep all objects away.  You can hold your child's head in your lap gently or rest it on a pillow, while you allow her body to do what it needs to do.  The child should not be restrained.  If you think about it, time the seizure.  Izzy's lasted several minutes and was within the range of normal.  Do not give medication or put anything else in your child's mouth.  Conventional wisdom used to say that you should stick a spoon or other object in a person's mouth during a seizure to keep them from swallowing or biting their tongue, but that is no longer advised.  Do not put anything in someone's mouth during a seizure.  

After the seizure is over, the child should be brought to the emergency room if it is her first seizure or if her temperature is extremely high.  Otherwise, your child will simply need lots of rest and you'll need to work at keeping her temperature down.  Of course, you'll need to treat the illness that caused the temperature to begin with, be it a cold, flu, or a simple virus. 

For more information on Febrile Seizures, check out this fact sheet from the NIH.  As always, I am not a medical professional, and you should always follow the advice of your own doctor over anything you read on the web.

Prevention?
There may not be a thing you can do to prevent a febrile seizure.  The seizure usually occurs during the onset of a fever, and fever medications are effective later on, so they may not prevent a seizure.  However, it is possible that medication can help, so our doctors & nurses at the ER, as well as our pediatrician, have all advised that we medicate fevers promptly. 

I'm a big believer in the good of a fever.  A fever is your body's natural response to illness and it's your body's way of making itself very uncomfortable for germs.  Fever one of your body's defenses against the germs that are attacking it.  By medicating every fever, we keep our bodies from doing what they should do.

However, as a responsible parent, I should not willingly put my child in a situation where she could have a seizure.  It wears her body out, which I'm sure is also not good for fighting germs.  Upon the advice of our doctor, we medicate fevers early, whenever it reaches the point of being a true fever (above 100). 

I do the same for our son, Izzy's younger brother.  There's a bit of a hereditary component to febrile seizures; not only has my doctor warned us of this, but I've seen it in my own family as well.  Three of my siblings had one or more febrile seizures at some point in their lives, and while I did not, one of my children has had one.  Consequently, I know that my other children could have them as well.

Do know that bathing causes a change in body temperature.  Two of my siblings had febrile seizures when my mother took them out of the bathtub.  Needless to say, I do not bathe my children when they have fevers.  It's not worth it.  And as one ER nurse practioner pointed out to me, if a child is left alone in the bathtub and has a seizure, he or she could drown.  

Because my siblings had febrile seizures, my mom warned me about these when I was pregnant with my first child.  She told me to expect them, explained how to handle them, and the result is that while I was definitely terrified while watching my child, I knew that she would be OK.  I was more concerned about the cause of her fever, which turned out to be a simple fever only virus.

That's the main reason I wanted to tell you about febrile seizures.  If you know about them ahead of time, you'll be better prepared and possibly a little less frightened if your child ever experiences one.

Izzy, checking her toy's temperature with our temporal scanning thermometer.

  
Has anyone else experienced febrile seizures?  I'd love to hear your experience.