Is it dangerous for a baby under 3 mos to have a fever?

[expatkat]

I ask because a friend here in the US says that new mothers are told to take babies under 3 mos to hospital ASAP if develop a fever. She says it has to do with their having an underdeveloped blood-brain barrier, and they are immediately given IV antibiotics. I had neither of my 2 babies here, so wasn't aware of this. Have any of you mumsnetters been told this? Or is this specific to the US?

My ds2 had an unexplained, mild fever (just over 100 degrees f) when he was 2 weeks old.

I took him to the Doctors, and he wasn't sent to hospital, just examined thoroughly and had follow-up app's for a while.

Actually he did end up on IV antibiotics but that was because the Doctor cauterised his belly button and made a real mess of it while we were at an appointment to check his fever. Subsequently, due to this, it got infected.
Prior to the cauterising, after a few app's over a week in which his temp went up and down, and during which his belly button was cauterised purely because it hadn't dried up, we were referred to the paed's at the hospital, and they took one look at his belly button and admitted him.

After he came out of hospital, he was fine, so it seemed that whatever had been causing his fever had been sorted otu at the same time as his belly button.

I think admitting them as standard procedure must be specific to the US.

I believe that here in England the NHS suggest that you try to keep the fever down, the only way to do it is by bathing them in warm water because at 3m they are too young for medicines, I believe the fever is not really dangerous unless is more than 39 degress or if it had been going for several days. HOwever,... I'm not quite sure how much I trust the NHS

My DS was 6 weeks old when I took him to the doctor's with a temperature. We were sent straight to the hospital and were admitted. They gave him paracetamol and when his temp went up he was given a lumbar puncture that didn't work and full IV antibiotics for 4 days for suspected meningitis ... (As the lumbar puncture didn't work they had to wait for 4 days for the blood tests and in the meantime decided to pump him with anti b's as a precautionary measure).
It was pretty scary at the time as you can imagine and as it turned out he did not have meningitis ... so in fact the antibiotics were not necessary BUT I cannot fault the care DS had and will always be grateful that they took it so seriously ... Because IF it had been meningitis and the doctor had sent me away ... well, it just doesn't bear thinking about does it??
PS ... his brush with antibiotics at such a young age has not harmed him one bit ...