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!
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!