Kindly tell me about the medicines to be used to treat fever in a baby.

Question

Hello doctor,

My son's age is 9 months, 26.46 lbs, having fever since yesterday, we have given liquid medicine two times as of now (Paracetamol). After taking the medicine, fever came down and again back to 101 degrees Fahrenheit, can you suggest any other medicine?

Answer 1

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

When we see a rise in body temperature we call it fever. Fever is a symptom and not the diagnosis of a disease. Fever can be caused by various reasons most commonly due to some infections. Fever is the body's response to infections, rise in body temperature, helps prevent the spread of infection in the body. But we reduce fever by drugs because it causes discomfort and may induce convulsions in some children. Paracetamol reduces fever only and does not treat the cause of fever. So once the effects of the drug come down, fever rises again.

So I want to know what other symptoms are present along with fever-like cough, cold, pain in the abdomen, etc. Which will provide a clue about which infection is likely. So continue Paracetamol every sixth hourly and if fever persists go for blood tests like CBC CRP urine microscopy or chest X-ray, blood cultures and if needed antibiotics will be started.