04 Dec Home Remedies to Deal With Fits in Toddlers – If Any?
A lot of children experience seizures during their childhood courtesy of biological and environmental factors. So, How to Deal With Fits in Toddlers?
Seizure experienced by children can be life-threatening and can leave the child scarred for life. It is important as parents to recognize subtle signs of seizures to prevent further brain damage.
What is a seizure?
Seizure can be defined as an abnormal activity that fires up in brain.
These can come in various forms and can have different causes and effects. Sometimes, it is caused due to high fever, traumatic injury to the brain, or infections.
Seizures can be confused with other symptoms such as when a person loses consciousness or uncontrolled shaking.
Symptoms of a seizure vary depending upon the part of the brain involved and leave the child with an ‘odd’ feeling. When the child has more than three seizures consecutively it can be termed as epilepsy.
What can trigger a seizure in a child?
Seizures in children are similar to adults but they can have different causes such as most common seizures in children are febrile seizures and infantile spasms that are exclusive to the children. Some of the other causes in newborns are
- Metabolic abnormalities like low blood sugar level
- Brain malformation
- Traumatic injury to the brain during pregnancy
- Lack of oxygen during birth
- Serious infection
- Inherited disorders due to gene mutation
- Use of certain drugs during pregnancy
- Alcohol use during pregnancy
In older children, usually the cause is unknown but on further investigations, it can be due to infections, or brain injury.
Sometimes, it gets difficult to find a cause of seizure in children which can get frustrating for parents. Epileptic seizures can occur due to sudden electric waves being released in the brain.
These kinds don’t have any apparent cause and can happen to any age but are more common in young children and adults.
Seizure triggers can be not taking prescribed medication, flashing lights, stress, lack of sleep, or dehydration.
Signs and Symptoms
Seizures in children can be hard to recognize. It can present as the child smacking their lips together or chewing involuntarily.
The symptoms depend on the type of seizure the child has. Although, the typical symptoms are
- Confused speech
- Blank staring
- Uncontrollable shaking or jerky movements
- Eyes or head turned to one direction
- Excessive drooling
- Loss of bladder or bowel function
- Loss of consciousness or no responsiveness
Along with this, the motor symptoms can also manifest like
- Repetitive actions
- Fidgeting with clothes, grunting, lip smacking,
- Jerky movements or stiffness in one or both limbs
- Twitching movements
The signs of seizure in toddlers while sleeping can be
- Sudden movements during sleep
- Head jerking to one side
- Upper limb rises to a frozen state
- Rocking or bicycle pedaling movements
- Awakening for no apparent reason
- Shouting or screaming at night
- Violent arm movement
In seizure disorder, sometimes the children can experience auras as part of the condition. This lasts for around 15 mins before the seizure starts and acts like a warning sign. They can be
- Physical sensation like numbness or tingling
- Headache or dizziness
- Feeling sad or anxious
What to do if a child has seizure from fever?
When a child’s fever reaches more than 38 degrees, a seizure can be triggered. These seizures are harmless, and are caused by an infection. They can last for around 15 minutes and can be divided into simple and complex types.
Simple febrile seizures are characterized by body shakes and loss of consciousness lasting for less than 15 minutes. 90% of febrile seizures are simple and don’t occur more than once within a 24-hour period frame.
A complex febrile seizure involves jerky movements of the entire body or only one side of the body and loss of consciousness for more than 15 minutes.
These seizures can occur more than once in 24 hours and children go on to develop seizure disorder in their adulthood.
Usually the febrile seizures are caused by fever due to a viral or respiratory infection or even an ear infection.
The febrile seizures can leave the child confused even after several hours called post ictal period. If the seizure lasts longer or there are too many seizures in between the child risks brain damage if not treated.
The first aid for convulsion due to high fever is
- Try and stay calm with the child
- Make the child as comfortable as possible like providing with cushions
- Place them on their side
- Loosen any tight clothing, remove anything they are wearing near their neck
- Pay attention to the seizure as how long it lasts
- If the seizure lasts for more than 5 minutes, call the emergency services.
A child should be treated with medications that reduce the fever. If the seizure lasts more than 5 minutes, they should be given the medication for cessation of the seizure.
Medications include either sedative or anti-seizure given intravenously.
Even after receiving the treatment, if the child is still experiencing seizures, they are taken for further investigations and their blood pressure is monitored.
What to do if the child has seizure in the classroom?
Children with epileptic disorder can have seizures anytime without any warning. So, How to Deal With Fits in Toddlers?
It is important for school to have all the information regarding a seizure disorder in the child, to manage it primarily if any emergent situation arised.
If a child experiences seizure in a classroom, after calling the emergency services the staff should
- Place the child in on their side
- Move any harmful objects out of the way to prevent any heinous injury
- Time the seizure
- Check what the child’s seizure action plan is
It is every parent or legal guardian’s responsibility to provide How to Deal With Fits in Toddlers action plan to the school.
- Responsibilities for everyone at the school
- Detailed information about the child’s seizure disorder
- What to do in case the child experiences seizure
- Instructions for the medication use
- Emergency contact
- Hospital and doctor’s contact where the child is taking the treatment
What to do if your child has seizure at home?
Seizure can be life-threatening even in a child’s life and if immediate treatment is not provided there’s a risk of brain damage.
In case your child is having one, the first thing is to do to ask someone to call their doctor and then
- Place the child on floor and remove nearby objects
- Move the child to their side to avoid risk of aspiration
- Make sure the child is breathing okay
- Do no try to prevent the child from shaking
- Don’t give the child any medication by mouth until they are awake and alert
Parents play a key-role in preventing further damage when the child is having a seizure at home.
So, it’s important for them to know everything about the disorder so that they know what to do if a situation arises.
Make sure the child takes the epilepsy medication on time to avoid any problem. Most cases, the child can experience a seizure due to the triggers.
So, avoiding the triggers can help matters. At times, lack of proper sleep can cause a seizure. Try and keep a note of the triggers and surroundings when a seizure happens to understand and treat it better.
What to do after a child has a seizure?
How to Deal With Fits in Toddlers? Most seizures last only for a minute and if they last longer, be prepared with what your child’s doctor has suggested. After a seizure, the child may be confused and burn out, and letting them rest is the best option.
Due to loss of bladder and bowel control, there may be times, they might have peed or pooped in their pants.
Sometimes, the child bites their tongue during the seizure, so if you notice bleeding after the seizure, place a clean cloth and try to put gentle pressure on the bleeding to stop it.
If the child is not breathing after the seizure ends, you need to take them to the hospital immediately.
If the child does not return to normal after the seizure, take them to the emergency services.
Convulsion treatment
First of all, the 3 rules of seizures first aid are
- Move the child to their side and remove nay nearby objects
- Time the seizure
- Check for their breathing
The treatment of convulsion in a child is to make sure the convulsion first aid for the baby is done.
Now, if the child is not breathing, perform mouth to mouth rescue breathing. Take the child immediately to the hospital.
The antiseizure medications work well if the child is taking them according to how they were prescribed. The dose of the medications might be increased according to the weight and as the child grows.
They need to continue taking medication depends on the child’s condition and the type of the seizure they are suffering from.
The goal of the treatment is for the child to have a shot at living a better quality life. Sometimes, complying to the seizure plan given by your child’s doctor can ensure they may get better.
The home remedy for convulsion in child involves
- Herbal remedies and ayurveda treatment
- Vitamins like b-6, magnesium, vitamin e, or vitamin d and folic acid may help with the symptoms
- Dietary changes such as keto-diet consisting of low keto, and low protein diet.
Sometimes, the doctors ask the parents to take toddler’s seizures videos in order to know if it’s a tonic clonic or generalized mal seizure. The treatment can depend on it accordingly.
How to Deal With Fits in Toddlers is a very serious matter that should not be taken lightly. Taking a professional’s help is important and vital.
The neuropsychiatrist in Patna, Dr. Vivek pratap Singh deals with these disorders and rest assured you will be in safe hands with him on this.
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