 Fever is a clinical condition where there's an elevation of the body temperature above normal. Many times the regular body temperature is between 35.5 degrees Celsius to about 37.4 degrees Celsius. Anything above that can be classified as fever. In some cases, there's a difference between fever and hypotemia, especially when the person has been exposed to a hot environment coming down, coming out from a hot sun or a natural raised body temperature. But aside that, once there's a raise in body temperature beyond 37.4, you can classify that as fever. There are several causes of fever in children. One of them includes sepsis. This means the invasion of the body by microbes, by bacteria, or by microbes generally, which could be either bacteria, fungi, or even virus. That is sepsis. It could be paracetamia, especially more in our local environment where there's malaria. It could cause fever. Other conditions could be dehydration is one major cause of fever, just like your regular car. When there's an overheating, you know that the water is drying up. Same way it is, even in a child, especially when they are dehydrated, they are prone to having fever. These are the major causes of fever. There are several other causes of fever that can happen. But key factors are one, sepsis, which is the invasion of microbes. And especially when there are open wounds, maybe there's poor hygiene in situations where there's stooling and vomiting, there could be inhalation of microbes, example in cases of asthma, broncholemia, there would always be fever. So most of these clinical conditions where there are infected causes will produce fever. Other causes, like I've just said, paracetamia, things like, especially malaria, will produce fever. And lastly, dehydration will produce fever. Well, practically, fever in itself is a symptom. So what are the symptoms to look out for in fever? It's the raised body temperature. But more importantly, when there is a raised body temperature, it comes occasionally with some degree of weakness, some degree of unwellness. Many other times, the fever could come with thirst, it could be a need for a lot of tests. That's when you also know that dehydration is one of the causes. One of the other things to look out for is any other surrounding symptom around that fever. And of course, any other surrounding symptom, for example, open wounds, like I've said, and any form of infection. First, every mother should have a thermometer. You don't say that my child has fever because you touched a child. Oof, it's hot. Fever is not measured by your hand. It's measured by a certain device called a thermometer. And it's simple. There's a handheld thermometer and there is the thermometer, the auxiliary thermometer or the mercury thermometer. Now this practically tells you this fever. The moment you notice fever in your child, that's not when you are rushing to get all kinds of syrup. The first thing is to expose that child. Now, one thing I failed to mention is that fever sometimes could come with chills, depending on the age of the child. It could come with chills in worse situations for older children. It could come with rigor. So that person, the child is feeling cold and asking to turn off all the fan and in other conditions is already shaking. Now this shakiness is because the body is trying to produce heat and so is vibrating. Now when you notice that because the child is feeling cold, doesn't necessitate covering and turning on the fan. Now that's even when you expose, that's when you want to tap it sponge. Tap it sponge means dipping a towel into normal water and tabbing over the body. It's not batting with cold water or ice blocked water. So you use normal water and tap it sponge, wrap around until that temperature comes down. If that temperature is not able to come down with that, you can advance to the use of simple drugs like paracetamol. The use of paracetamol has almost no contraindication especially if you follow the prescription. So when you use it, first time you could do as much as six hourly. But if you do for one, two, three times and this fever is relapsing and going and coming back with the use of paracetamol, I think that's the right time to go to your doctor. Now many times people, many mothers want to use ibuprofen. I don't recommend that you go as far as using ibuprofen. You could use it but use it on your way to the hospital to see your doctor. So basically fever is one of the most predominant conditions in children and it can, if not properly managed, especially in children between the ages of six months to six years, it can result into something we call fibral convulsion where the child begins to shake and of course that damages the brain. So in other words, you must prevent the escalation of fever by constantly controlling it and if you do that for 24 to 48 hours and that child is not getting better, advice you go see your doctor. My final word is that fever is not a symptom on its own. Many things cause it. You don't treat the fever, you treat the cause of fever. Fever many times comes with association and you want to find out what are the other associations. And when you take a close history, you see that that fever has progressed into something else, maybe cough, maybe stooling, maybe diarrhea, these symptoms help the clinician to find out what is wrong with the patient.