My 6 1/2 year old daughter fainted yesterday...

NanceXToo

New member
I really just wanted to remind you guys that with the onset of summer, sometimes young kids don't handle heat as well as you expect them to. Make sure if you are taking them out in the sun, you dress them in lightweight breathable clothing and make sure you have water or cold drinks with you and if you don't tend to push drinks as much as you should while you are out, you should try to make them stop and take a break and rest and drink water or other fluids every 20 minutes, even if they don't ask or say they aren't thirsty.

My daughter, Alexa, is 6 1/2 and this never happened to us before.

We went to a park yesterday from about 10:20 AM til about 11:25 AM- just about an hour. It was sunny and around 82 degrees.

We did bring bottles of water with us, and she asked for some in the car on the way there and I gave it to her. But she didn't really drink any in the hour we were at the park, because she got busy playing I guess and didn't come over and ask for any. Assuming she would tell me if she was thirsty, I didn't think to tell her she had to drink some and I guess I didn't think we were there long enough for it to be a problem. She did come over at one point and sat under a shaded picnic area to eat some munchkin donuts with the other kids for a couple of minutes, the rest of the time she was alternating between running around and sitting in the sandbox etc in the sun.

When we went to leave, we were walking toward my car, and Alexa suddenly said: "I feel like I'm going to throw up from running around too much!" I was a little concerned but not freaking out or anything. We stopped alongside my car and my husband went to put Ben in his carseat while I stood with Alexa keeping an eye on her and talking to her and trying to determine if she was really going to throw up.

After my husband got Ben situated, he came around the back of the car and and stopped in front of Alexa (I was standing kind of behind her). All of a sudden I saw her hang her head down and her shoulders slump and I thought for a second it was because she was going to throw up, and I went to reach out to touch her shoulder or hold her hair but then she just.... passed out. She fainted. And fortunately she fell against my husband and he caught her, because otherwise she would have fallen on her face into a parking lot consisting of rocks and gravel and I don't think I would have been able to stop her from falling in time.

I was SO scared to see her go out like that and be all unresponsive and pale, her face and lips lost all color.

My husband carried her over to the grass and laid her down and kept talking to her and making sure she was breathing and had a pulse that seemed fairly normal and all that stuff.

I was in the process of calling 911 on my cell phone, and the scariest part of all was that I really didn't know where exactly we were. This was a playdate through my mom's group that my husband happened to come along to this time, and I had directions how to get there from my house but it was about 25 minutes away from home and I didn't even know what township I was in.

But by the time we were getting that sorted out, Alexa was already awake. My husband had her fully alert and back under the shaded picnic area where he was giving her a bottle of water one of the other moms had handed to him, and he was saying that we didn't need 911, that she was fine, her color was back, she was alert, drinking water etc. She was out for a total of maybe 15 seconds.

So I cancelled the 911 call and went over to check on her while one of the other moms got Ben back out of the carseat for me.

Alexa seemed normal again, she drank the whole bottle of water, my husband got the car running with the AC going for a couple of minutes before we put her in the car with the AC, and I called her pediatrician to tell them what had happened to see if they wanted to see her or if they thought she SHOULD go to a hospital or if they wanted to ask me any questions or tell me anything to look for etc.

The pediatrician's office said that it wasn't all that uncommon, especially with younger kids, that they get a little dehydrated, maybe a little nauseous running around in the sun, and that sometimes it just happens. He said to just keep an eye on her, keep her cool, give her plenty of fluids, and if she had any other complaints or it happened again or anything didn't seem right, to call back.

I kept an eye on her all day, kept her either in the AC or in the little pool we've got outside for a while, even had her fall asleep in my room and didn't move her to her room til after midnight. I was really really scared by it.

In looking around online a bit this morning it seems it might have been a touch of heat exhaustion or heat syncope. (symptoms of heat exhaustion are headaches, nauseau, vomiting, fainting, dizziness, fever of 101 to 104 (not a true fever but caused by the heat) etc; which can progress into heat stroke if left untreated, which can be life threatening, so the child has to be cooled off and given fluids etc) Heat syncope is fainting due to heat/dehydration. The only symptom from the "heat exhaustion" list she had other than fainting was nauseau, so I don't know.

The recommendations for prevention are to make sure you give fluids every 20 minutes even if the child isn't thirsty, dress the children in lightweight cool clothing etc. It also said that children on certain medications and children who have certain underlying illnesses, and children who have "had heat injuries before" are at higher risk. So maybe this means she is at higher risk of this happening again now. I will definitely be more careful to give fluids and to watch her etc from now on when we are going to be outside on a hot sunny day.

Anyway I just wanted to share it with you guys because it really worried me and maybe it will help someone pay more attention to that kind of thing. I feel like a jerk for not just automatically realizing I should give her water, but like I said, we were only there an hour and she had some on the way there and I just didn't think about it because she didn't ask, but now I realize that an hour of playtime in the sun was way too long to let a child go without fluids, even if she didn't ask for them. I should have called her over every 20 minutes or so and said "come drink some water." Now I know. And in case there are any of you who don't think about it as much as you should either, I wanted to let you know.

P.S. Fortunately Ben was fine as he held onto his sippy cup of water much of the time we were there and drank from it, and at 19 months, he tends to ask for "wa-wa" pretty frequently throughout the day and I always give it to him when he asks, but with a kid who is a little bit older, when she DOESN'T ask, sometimes I just don't think to offer as much as I should, but from now on I definitely will! With all of my kids. It was really scary to have that happen!
 
ADS

Jewels

Senior Community Member
Wow! Glad she is ok :thumbsup:

It is sometime hard to remember the fluids in the how weather, thanks for the reminder!
 

ThreeBeans

New member
I'm glad she's ok!

Now don't beat yourself up...she just sounds like she's extra sensitive to the heat and there's no way you could have known that would happen. Fainting isn't damaging...in fact it's an entirely self-limiting scenario :thumbsup:
 
Thanks for the timely reminder-- I just bought a little backyard blowup pool, and my kids will likely be out in it all day today. I'll be sure to remember to push fluids frequently. Maybe set up a pitcher of water and cups out back. :thumbsup:

I'm so glad your dd is fine. I'd have been a bit freaked out too.
 

rachel3612

Senior Community Member
How scary! I am glad to hear she is okay. I would never have thought to worry about that in that cool of weather! I would never have thought about it but that is nice spring weather for us, when it gets 100 or so I push water on the kids.

How is she now? You said she was eating donuts is that something she normally has or was it a treat? Liam would get like that if he had a ton of sugar and then ran around. He has never passed out like that but he gets all pale and sweaty and says he is going to throw up. For him its a sign his blood sugar is too high. Lucky for me he is 4 and now he makes the connection.
 

keri1292

Well-known member
I'm so happy that she's OK. Really you're probably the one that is NOT okay, right? ;) My daughter has a talent for syncope. It runs in the family but, skipped me ~ yea! She passes out at the sight of blood. It started when she was 3.5 years old and had her iron tested at WIC. At first they thought that she had a seizure because she trembled when she fainted however, they figured out that the shaking was from her blood pressure plummeting. We did an EEG just to be safe. I was relieved when she fainted again during a blood test for Rheumatoid Arthritis. Even though they said the "convulsing" was probably from her blood pressure, I didn't relax again until it was confirmed by her fainting again. She slept in our bed for about 6 months after and I had nightmares for over a year which stopped as soon as she fainted again and I stopped worrying about brain tumors, aneurysms, etc. :eek: Luckily I caught her as well, so no head injuries but it was just so scary. We were taken by ambulance due to the "seizure". I was 6 months pg and had a 9 month old, who the very kind WIC ladies kept trying to convince me to leave with them. :eek: I'd never even left him with his father at that point. So he got an ambulance ride too.
So, again, I'm sorry that you had to deal with this. It is so scary to see your baby unresponsive. Now that you know that she is prone to it, it's unlikely to happen again cuz she'll be the most hydrated girl at the park! :) My dd hasn't fainted again, probably because we ask her to sit with her head on her knees while we take care of boo-boos. Now I'm not concerned about the fainting just the falling. Also, at first I put a baby monitor right beside my daughter in bed so I could hear her breathing when I woke up panicked. I'm crazy. I know. :eek: But, it may help you relax.
As a side note, we never went back to WIC again. The free cheese wasn't that good! :D
 

jen_nah

CPST Instructor
OMG!!! I am so glad she is okay!

Thank you for the reminder as we are leaving tomorrow morning for Sea World (Texas) for 5 days. Since we live in TX where it gets to 100+ with high humidity (esp down south where SW is) I am going to make sure I push fluids on the girls big time this week.
 

hsjwmom

New member
How scary! I am so glad she is OK. Thank you for the warning...it is so hot here in Houston, I (mean mommy) rarely let my girls play outside for long.
 

Loves2sing

New member
I am so glad she is okay! Thanks for sharing, I wouldn't have really thought about it either at her age! When our kids are babies we try to keep them out of the sun, and keep them cool, but we almost assume they can handle the heat by that age. It's great to have a reminder that we need to keep protecting our kids as they get older!
 

NanceXToo

New member
Thanks for the replies everyone :)

Alexa's been fine ever since, fortunately!

Rachel,
Not sure if the donuts had anything to do with it...she doesn't normally eat stuff like that in the middle of the day or anything (she does get a dessert every night) but I'm sure it wasn't the first time she got a treat while we were out like that...I don't know! She ate like 3 or 4 munchkins; before that she'd just had a bowl of honey nut cheerios for breakfast. So no idea if it was related to sugar or something but it's something to keep in mind!
 

Wineaux

New member
As a soon to be new Dad, thanks for the heads up! I'll be sure to keep this in mind for the future. I'm glad to hear she's OK.
 

skaterbabs

Well-known member
Thanks for the replies everyone :)

Alexa's been fine ever since, fortunately!

Rachel,
Not sure if the donuts had anything to do with it...she doesn't normally eat stuff like that in the middle of the day or anything (she does get a dessert every night) but I'm sure it wasn't the first time she got a treat while we were out like that...I don't know! She ate like 3 or 4 munchkins; before that she'd just had a bowl of honey nut cheerios for breakfast. So no idea if it was related to sugar or something but it's something to keep in mind!

I'm hypoglycemic and that sounds like a classic reaction to too much sugar and not enough protien. happens to me often, but I've had enough practice to know that it means to eat something with protien in it FAST.

If eating something solid is out of the question (for me it is first thing in the morning, my system can't even handle cereal until I've been awake and moving for several hours) I'll drink a cup of soy milk, or make a smoothie with it, for the protien. (I can't drink regular milk.)

I would make certain to take high-protien snacks with you like nuts (if she isn't allergic of course), beef jerky is good because it's fairly portable, ect.
 

Car-Seat.Org Facebook Group

Forum statistics

Threads
219,655
Messages
2,196,895
Members
13,530
Latest member
onehitko860

You must read your carseat and vehicle owner’s manual and understand any relevant state laws. These are the rules you must follow to restrain your children safely. All opinions at Car-Seat.Org are those of the individual author for informational purposes only, and do not necessarily reflect any policy or position of Carseat Media LLC. Car-Seat.Org makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. If you are unsure about information provided to you, please visit a local certified technician. Before posting or using our website you must read and agree to our TERMS.

Graco is a Proud Sponsor of Car-Seat.Org! Britax is a Proud Sponsor of Car-Seat.Org! Nuna Baby is a Proud Sponsor of Car-Seat.Org!

Please  Support Car-Seat.Org  with your purchases of infant, convertible, combination and boosters seats from our premier sponsors above.
Shop travel systems, strollers and baby gear from Britax, Chicco, Clek, Combi, Evenflo, First Years, Graco, Maxi-Cosi, Nuna, Safety 1st, Diono & more! ©2001-2022 Carseat Media LLC

Top