How to deal with night sweats in children

Doctor Dinh Thac (Children's Hospital 1, Ho Chi Minh City) explained the causes of night sweats in children and gave some measures to control this phenomenon for parents to refer to.

Common signs and symptoms to identify children with night sweats are that the child cries a lot at night, sleeps restlessly, or wakes up suddenly in the middle of the night. The cause is due to the child lacking vitamin D or because the parents wrap the child too tightly.

Infants with vitamin D deficiency in the newborn period often suffer from night sweats. Most infants under 1 year old are vitamin D deficient because this is the stage when the skeletal system develops most strongly. In addition, premature infants, low birth weight infants, children with infectious diseases, children with prolonged digestive disorders, children with rickets, etc. are also severely deficient in vitamin D. If you pay attention, parents can easily notice that their children often sweat a lot on the forehead and nape of the neck even when the weather is cold, especially when they sleep, so their hair often falls out at the back of their neck.

Some children sweat a lot at night because their mothers cover them with too many blankets or their bedroom is too stuffy and unventilated, making them feel stuffy, uncomfortable and often sweaty. In this case, night sweats are not a disease, parents just need to ventilate the child's sleeping area to overcome this condition.

Parents need to distinguish between physiological night sweats and pathological night sweats to have appropriate treatment.

Physiological night sweats: Children sweat because their metabolism is stronger than that of adults. If they are a little more excited and stimulated, they will sweat to release heat from their bodies. This is also an adjustment to keep body temperature constant. Physiological sweats often appear in the head and neck, usually occurring about 30 minutes before going to bed and disappearing about 60 minutes later. Physiological night sweats usually do not have a significant impact on children's health, so parents should not worry too much.

Pathological night sweats: Often appear in children with rickets, primary tuberculosis, manifested by the child's head sweating a lot, especially when breastfeeding or after sleeping, increased sweating but not related to the weather. At the same time, there are other manifestations of rickets such as slow fontanelle closure, large bone ends, chicken-like chest, bow legs or signs of primary tuberculosis (prolonged cough, poor appetite, chest X-ray showing primary tuberculosis lesions). Because of excessive and continuous sweating, the child's body will lose a certain amount of water and salt, making the child's body weaker, more tired, and open pores, which are the reasons why the child's body is susceptible to colds, respiratory infections such as pharyngitis, pneumonia, bronchitis... If this phenomenon persists and continues, the child's body will easily become exhausted.

To treat night sweats in children, Dr. Dinh Thac suggested the following measures to parents:

Vitamin D supplement:Taking advantage of sunlight is the “cheapest and most effective” way to supplement vitamin D for children. Parents should let their children sunbathe every morning, before 10am, with the sunbathing time gradually increasing from 10 to 30 minutes. Let the child’s skin be exposed to sunlight as much as possible, and do not let the child’s eyes come into direct contact with sunlight.

Keep your baby cool:The bedroom should be spacious and airy. Children should play in the shade. They should always bathe daily and have enough water.

Proper nutrition:Feed your child a variety of cooling vegetables and fruits such as pennywort, sweet cabbage, bitter cabbage, squash, pumpkin, dragon fruit, oranges, and tangerines. Do not feed your child too much hot food such as oil, beef, shrimp, crab, sea fish, etc. or fruits such as jackfruit, durian, mango, etc. These foods are high in energy and generate a lot of heat during metabolism, making your child's body sweat a lot, which can cause itching or even acne on the skin.

Take your child to see a doctor:If you detect abnormalities in your child's night sweats (pathological night sweats), along with other symptoms in your child such as frequent fever, mental decline, thinning hair, slow teething, slow fontanelle closure, slow crawling, slow walking, etc., parents need to take their child to see a doctor for timely examination and treatment.

According to Family