10 Tips: When to Go to the Emergency Room for Children
It is a situation that we usually want to avoid at all costs, but seems to be almost inevitable; the situation where our child is sick or injured. Children are instinctively curious and given they are learning on the job as it were, are likely to place themselves in situations where they are likely to get injured. Children also suffer from illnesses, just like all of us, and therefore, hard as it may to accept, it is safe to say that during the course of their childhood, one is likely to get sick or injured at one point or the other. Given how precious our children are to us, it is therefore important to evaluate and make a decision whether the situation is serious or not so that you can know if you need to take them to the emergency room or not. Given the importance of this call, and ensuring you make the right one to ensure the safety of your child, this article should be of great help as it will look to highlight 10 tips that should help you know when to go to the emergency room as far as children are concerned.
If your child has suffered a serious head injury and has passed out or lost consciousness, then you should call 911 and have them taken to the emergency room as soon as possible. This is because the passing out indicates they may have suffered severe concussion and need to be evaluated immediately. If they also begin to vomit severely or start acting out of norm after a head injury, they should also be taken to the emergency room as soon as possible.
Another situation that should be taken very seriously is if your child suffers an injury to the neck or spine. This may be due to a heavy fall or bike or skating accident among others, but as per the gurus over at FrontlineER.com, rather than taking your child to the emergency room yourself, you should call 911 and have them do so to prevent any further damage.
Given children, especially those able to move about and walk, get into a lot of mischief, they are likely to suffer accidents in the house. As such, another situation where you should take your child to the emergency room is if they suffer severe burns. These include 3rd degree burns, where damage has been done to deep underlying tissue, burns that are extensive as well as burns on sensitive areas of the body such as the face, genitals, and the limbs.
As mentioned above and also discussed in detail over at FrontlineER.com, children are prone to suffering accidents. In such instances, if they are presenting with sever bleeding, which cannot be stemmed, then they should be taken to the emergency room as soon as possible to be attended to especially given excessive loss of blood is life-threatening.
Other than excessive bleeding, if your child has suffered a deep wound, one where the underlying tissue, including bone, has been exposed, then they should also be taken to the emergency room as soon as possible as such a wound will require to be closed up to avoid infection.
Yet another tip that we can’t fail to highlight, one that the subject matter experts over at FrontlineER.com agree with, is that if your child suddenly can’t speak, walk or see, then they should be taken to an emergency room as soon as possible. This is a matter of urgency as it could be due to a serious medical situation and needs to be attended to immediately.
If your child also suffers from an injury resulting to a broken bone, then they should be taken to the emergency room as soon as possible, especially if there is clear deformity or there is even bone protruding from the skin. Broken bones can be quite painful and should be treated with urgency so that the child’s pain can be eased at an emergency room through sedation.
Another tip as far as taking your child to the emergency room is concerned is that you should ensure you do so if they begin to show signs that they are suffering from a severe allergic reaction. As is covered in detail over at FrontlineER.com, such signs include shortness of breath and general breathing problems, swelling mouth or lips, severe hives and welts, skin turning blue among others, all of which should be taken seriously as severe allergic reactions are potentially life-threatening.
If your child suffers an injury and thereafter a body part near the injured part develops numbness, a tingling sensation and becomes weak, pale in color as well as cold, then they should be rushed to an emergency room as soon as possible. This is because these signs indicate that if not attended to immediately, they could lose use of the body part permanently.
Children should also be taken to the emergency room as soon as possible if they are stung or bitten by poisonous animal. It could be a poisonous spider or snake or even a scorpion, but this should be taken seriously as it is a life-threatening situation. Bites from stray or rabid dogs, those from domestic animals as well as scratches from rusty wires and metals should also lead to a visit to an emergency room especially if the child is behind on the tetanus or rabies vaccine shots.
The above 10 tips are just the tip of the iceberg as far as the topic of when to take your child to the emergency room goes. You can get so much more information on the same as well as on other related topics by checking out the ever reliable FrontlineER.com.
