SICKNESS IN INFANTS AND CHILDREN
Infants cannot tell us that they are sick. Small children younger than about three years old should not be relied on too definitely for an announcement of symptoms of illness. Even older children may become so frightened, or so drowsy from a particular illness, that they do not tell us early enough that they do not feel well. It is the responsibility of parents, and those who take care of children at school and in child-care centres, to learn to recognize the sick child by certain changes in the young one’s behaviour and appearance.
Usually, a mother or teacher can tell as early as a doctor that a child is not feeling right. She senses that he is not eating well or is unusually irritable. Or the mother may notice that the infant’s spitting up of milk has turned into true vomiting. She may see that the child is drowsy at a time of the day when he is usually very alert. Also, the child’s mother knows his cry. Cries of hunger, loneliness, or fright are very different from the cry that accompanies pain.
When babies and small children get sick, their illness usually shows itself quickly with fever. The best way to make sure that a child really has a fever is to take his temperature with a thermometer.
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