High blood pressure in children

[MillyR]

We were in the doctors yesterday and they had one of those blood pressure machines that you put your arm into. DS checked his and it was:

Sys: 131
Dia: 113

The Dia one is very high. I checked on an online chart and this is severe hypertension in a child. I am going to try and get an appointment with the doctor or nurse, but I was wondering if possibly these machines don't take accurate readings of children and are only meant for adults. Does anyone know if they use something different for children's blood pressure?

I should perhaps add that DS has quite a low BMI and is in the lower part of the healthy weight range for his age, so this is not an obesity issue. But I understand that children of normal weight can have hypertension.

The machines are accurate if the right cuff is used (there's different sizes for babies, children and adults) and they are used correctly. You can ask the practice nurse to check it though.

Thanks Belle. This only had one size cuff, but I will check with the nurse.

Try not to worry, an adult cuff on a child won't give an accurate result. The chances are that it was set up for an adult because the GP's tend to not take childrens BP's.

Yes, it was just set up in the waiting room for people to check their own blood pressure. DS only did it as a form of entertainment and now I am sat here worrying about it! I suspect it was not meant for children.

Not the best idea to leave it, I bet they will have a lot of concerned people in the surgery in the next few weeks.