The high temperatures maintained during the summer can affect the most vulnerable people. Babies and children, especially the smallest, are very sensitive to damage from being exposed to high temperatures careless.
When temperatures are very high and you are exposed to the sun, you run the risk of losing abundant body fluids that lead to dehydration, and what is known as a heatstroke. It occurs when the body generates an amount of heat that is not removable by the body's cooling systems.
This may be due to the fact that the production of body heat is excessive, that the ambient temperature is very high or that the heat elimination mechanisms do not work properly, although the most common is that it is due to the combination of these three factors . The insolation It is its most common form.
We have already seen that there are a number of tips that we can follow to minimize the risk of babies and children suffering a heat stroke. Now we stop at symptoms associated with heat stroke in order to better understand this process and know how to detect it as soon as possible and, if it occurs, how to act.
Symptoms associated with heat stroke:
- Sunstroke or direct action of the sun on vital areas of the body, especially the head, can produce a brain overheating which leads to it not working properly. It could be compared to what happens when a person suffers from a very high fever.
- There is a significant increase in body temperature (39ºC or more) and an abundant sweating at the beginning of the stroke.
- Sunstroke is accompanied by headache, a stabbing headache and in extreme cases, confusion and loss of consciousness that requires urgent hospital admission.
- It is accompanied by fatigue.
- Are produced muscle cramps.
- Are produced nausea and / or vomiting.
- Acne: flushed, hot skin and, in the most extreme cases, without sweat.
- Increased heart rate or heart rate.
- In some cases they feel trouble breathing and feeling short of breath.
- The more serious cases they occur if you stay in this state for a long time without taking the appropriate measures, and several of the above symptoms would come together: hot and dry skin, tachycardia (pulse acceleration), numbness and loss of consciousness, symptoms that may even lead to to the patient to death.
How to act in a heat stroke
If we suspect that a child has suffered a heat stroke, as soon as we begin to notice any of these symptoms we must go to a health center.
Meanwhile, or if we are to wait for medical assistance to reach us because we cannot displace the child, we will have to try reduce your body temperature following some recommendations:
- Find a shaded and cool place to move to the affected.
- Lighten the clothes so that the body is ventilated.
- Fan or ventilate the place to lower the child's body temperature.
- Wet the child with fresh water. A wet cloth could be placed in front, neck, wrists, armpits or English to reduce body temperature.
- Offer water to rehydrate. The contrast with excessively cold water can be harmful, so it should be fresh but not frozen and sip.
- With temperatures above 40 degrees, take a bath with fresh (not cold) water to try to reduce the temperature to 38º, at which time the cold would stop to prevent hypothermia and the process can be restarted if the temperature rises again.
Having a heat stroke or suffering heat stroke makes us more sensitive to hot conditions for about a week later, so you have to avoid especially risky situations.
And do not forget that by following some simple recommendations we can avoid the heat stroke in children, since, together with the elderly and the sick, they are the most susceptible to suffer it.
