To have taken my baby to emergency

[NeedingAGoodNap]

Our 8 month old daughter was feeling very unwell. She had a temp of around 40.3 and her breathing was very fast. It was 2am in the morning and we didn’t know what to do so we jumped in the car to take her to emergency. The triage nurse did some tests and found that her temp, breathing and heart rate were all very high so she admitted us straight away.

The doctor seemed confused as to why we were there and thought it was obvious that it was a virus and we should have just treated at home. They monitored and gave her pain relief for 4 - 5 hours until her heart rate we back in a normal range and then sent us home.

Where we unreasonable to take her in? It’s not like she can talk and tell us why she is so upset and unwell

You would have likely triggered primary care triage and be sent to A&E anyway if you’d gone to the GP. If an under 5 has rapid breathing and a high heart rate with a fever they’ll tend to trigger the systems. We had it quite a lot where my second wasn’t well enough to not be checked over and monitored by a paed but not necessarily poorly enough to be admitted.

We had one time when gp sent my baby in as a red flag sepsis risk. He was really worried about heart rate. By the time we arrived drugs had kicked in, temp was down and junior doctor sent us home with a patronising smile saying likely to be viral. We took her back next morning as not happy. Same doc saw us in passing and was like oh why are you back? While we were waiting to be seen, she projectile vomited over the ward, had a convulsion and turned blue which sent all the doctors running in. Junior doc had missed a kidney infection.

I’m a consultant paediatrician. Just to reassure you, this is an absolutely sensible trip to A&E, and I’d encourage you to behave the same way in future! The temperature itself is not such an issue, as young kids can and will cope really well with raised temperature. It will raise their metabolism, so they’ll get a high heart rate and resp rate. Bringing the temperature back down allows you to assess whether the rest of the vital signs come back down to normal and makes the child feel more comfortable (possibly encourage them to drink), but has little other benefit. Most situations like this will be viral and fairly harmless, and if the baby is otherwise OK and improving, we’d often choose to monitor for a few hours - if all babies with this story were presumed to be sepsis and treated aggressively, we’d rapidly run out of beds and useful antibiotics. Unfortunately, it isn’t always immediately obvious which rare baby with this story actually has a severe illness, hence a period of observation, unless some spidey sense is telling you the baby is more unwell. Sorry the doctor made you feel rubbish - this is their problem not yours, as this was a perfectly appropriate reaction from everyone prior to this.

The times I ended up in A&e with my daughter because my drs were about as usual as a chocolate teapot. On one occasion, despite being told had reflyx but refused meds fir it, I ended up in hospital, to be told that until hospital administer meds, your own gp won't act. I always felt to guilty, but didn't know what else to do. Don't feel guilty though, your child had quite a high temperature, you did the right thing..

you were fine to take in. i remember a doctor being annoyed we took our three week old in when we heard her wheezing - he said we should have waited until her two monthly check up at eight weeks..... 🙄

It's a long time ago now but I will never forget it. When my middle DS was 6 months he was sick a few times, then became pale and quiet. I rang the GP but was told there weren't appointments. Later on I rang the health visitor and she told me to make sure he was taking fluids. Later still I took him to the surgery and waited over an hour to see a doctor. He told me my DS had gastro enteritis and prescribed Dioralyte. As I opened the door the babies head flopped off my shoulder and the doctor said 'he's very floppy isn't he?' Outcome? A 2 hour emergency operation and if he hadn't had it he would probably have died that night. Always err on the side of caution and trust your instincts. That's particularly important at the moment when it's almost impossible to get a GP appointment.

You did the right thing, OP. The A&E doctor I know says they do get some people who don't need to be there but they never, ever mind seeing a baby or young child. She has on occasion "cured" screaming babies by waving her ID badge at them and distracting them from their upset - babies can go downhill extremely quickly and sometimes bounce back equally quickly, but in the moment you can't know if they are going to do that or if they are in fact seriously unwell. It is better to be safe than sorry in those cases.

GP here. For those who say should have given calpol and monitor, please do not give this advice. Temp of above 38 in a child under 3 months is a red flag for high risk infection / sepsis. Perhaps write to A&E and ask that the doctor has another look at the NICE guidance. I would have been speaking to paeds had you come to me. You did the right thing.
NICE traffic light system for serious illness in under 5 really useful:
www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng143/resources/support-for-education-and-learning-educational-resource-traffic-light-table-pdf-6960664333

My baby is almost 11 months and I'd have done exactly the same.
Hope your little ones better soon

Heart rate and breathing is fast due to temp. Calpol Brufen together initially to settle. Then alternate and gp in morning. However I am a nurse. However if pain mds didn't do owt I'd go a and e

I’m a doctor ( not paediatrics though). You did the correct thing.
When I was training a very wise and experienced GP said he’d rather see hundreds of well babies than not see the one that was really sick. He also said parents know their children much better than we do so if a parent felt something was wrong he would always see / speak to them them if only to ( hopefully) reassure. That’s stayed with me even though I’m in a very different specialty now.

@MummyLeg the OP's child is 8 months old. Is a temp of over 38 a red flag for sepsis at this age, I would have thought it could be caused by aot of things?

No I’d have done exactly the same

Would have definitely done the same thing, much better safe than sorry.

[quote Porcupineintherough]**@MummyLeg* the OP's* child is 8 months old. Is a temp of over 38 a red flag for sepsis at this age, I would have thought it could be caused by aot of things?[/quote]
Whoops sorry - misread age as 2 months... still would def have wanted to see this kid though and def not unreasonable for A&E with that temp plus breathing difficulty

NICE guidance states a fever with rapid breathing is suggestive of serious illness and that guidance is intended for healthcare professionals so a parental assessment may be expected to have an even lower threshold for concern. You did exactly the right thing OP and the fact that your child was admitted supports that

You definitely did the right thing. I had a similar experience and it turned out she was very poorly with bronchialitis, to the point that they were talking about moving her to another hospital. Don’t you feel guilty x

Never unreasonable with a baby.

Not at all. When our daughter was about 6months she suddenly did an impression of the girl from The Exorcist in our car, puke everywhere. She felt hot so we ended up panicking a bit and going to A&E. The doctor was a bit of a prick, really patronising telling me babies throw up, it's what they do. But she never did. At the time she was entirely BF and she'd never ever been sick, not even a bit (all those muslin cloths were a waste of money). And she felt like a mini furnace even though we stripped her to her vest. I basically lost my mind that he thought I didn’t know my own kid and demanded a second opinion. He begrudgingly ran some tests. Turned out to be a kidney infection which in a baby can get very serious if not treated. We caught it before it became a big problem. In fairness to the doctor he said he'd trust a parents instinct more in the future!

You absolutely did the right thing for your child and doctors aren’t always right.

@MummyLeg
Absolutely agree with you as I had a doctor tell me my child was ok with a high temp and high respiratory rate, took him to A&E next day and he had pneumonia on top of his heart failure! Thankfully in the end I listened to my instincts.

I would have done exactly what you did with my first. With the second, I'd have dosed him with Paracetemol for infants and observed for an hour or two, then decided. You're only eight weeks in, and that makes what you did entirely reasonable.

YA absolutely NBA. I know two separate people who were berated for calling an ambulance when their children had febrile convulsions, but if you’ve never heard of febrile convulsions then you’re going to be absolutely terrified if your child has one. As it happens a year or so later my DS was really ill and incredibly hot in the small hours one night so I googled febrile convulsions just in case, and when he did indeed have one not long after I was not nearly as terrified as I might have been, and didn’t call an ambulance (although the dr we saw in the morning still gave us something he had to take if he ever had one that lasted more than a certain amount of time, which would also have been cause for calling an ambulance).

I was also belittled once as a ftp taking my DD in after she’d somehow launched herself out of the baby carrier, fallen five feet and landed on her head. After that i was always reluctant to make a fuss. One winter we all had flu and I was sent to hospital to get an X-ray for DD and DS1. DS2 was maybe 10 months old and still in the full throes of the flu, or so I thought. A nurse looked at him and said, that baby needs to see a doctor now. He needed IV antibiotics but thanks to this nurse he was in only briefly and did not have to go to ICU.

Better safe than sorry, always.

@MrsAvocet

It's a long time ago now OP but when I was young I worked on a children's ward for a while. It was quite common for babies and yiung children to be admitted looking awful through the night but to e bouncing around like nothing was wrong by the morning ward round. I remember one junior doctor making some disparaging remark about anxious first time mums wasting his time and the really experienced Consultant really tore a strip off him in front of everyone. He said he would rather admit a thousand babies who were fine than miss one with meningitis and that when the young doctor grew up a bit he would realise that things are not always as obvious as he currently thought. I've always remembered that. It's definitely better to be safe than sorry.

Lovely consultant!!

@NeedingAGoodNap. You did the right thing and do it as many times as you need to.

Don't bother with 111, at best they're a waste of time at worst they put people in danger.

Don't be fobbed iff in A&E either if you feel your children are worse than you're being told. A&E don't always get it right either.

A Dr having zero bedside manner is not exactly unusual - take it with a pinch of salt!

I hope DD is a bix of birds in the morning, if you're still worried, go back. 💐

@halftime. One of my earliest memories is a bunch of men thundering up our stairs in the middle of the night. Ripping the clothes off my baby brother & throwing him into a very cold bath (this was the 70's) Febrile Convulsion. Obviously it's not what they do these days, and they're much more softly softly too. They were nice, once BB was dealt with, but it's a night I'll never forget!!! (He had a couple more after that which my parents then knew how to deal with, but he grew out of them).