A Brush with Meningitis
Tuesday 11th of March 2014 | Category: Opinion | Written by: Anne-Marie CThis isn't new content as it originally appeared on my blog, but having been in hospital with my 4 year old this week (broken clavicle - she fell out of bed), it brought back memories of when she was very tiny and this is information I think should be shared as much as possible.
Potential trigger warning: baby in hospital
When my youngest daughter was 5 weeks old, she had a slight fever. Just a little over 38C and if she’d been over 2 months old I’d have just given her a bit of Calpol. But she wasn’t, and I didn’t like to break the rules with a teeny baby so I phoned the out of hours GP service.
They told us to come in, and as there was no obvious reason for the fever, they sent us straight to A&E. This was a bit of a surprise, as I was just expecting them to give her Calpol.
We were seen immediately and they took her temperature, kept pressing on her skin, tried to get a urine sample to test for infection (5 week olds don’t wee on demand!), and even as they were taking a lumber puncture (a needle in the spine of my teeny 5 week old) I still thought we were going to be sent home...
It was at the point where we were taken to a ward in the Children’s Hospital that I asked “Is she being admitted?” It all seemed to happen so quickly that I was being dense, I didn’t even twig when they kept putting pressure on her skin to check for the rash. At some point the word meningitis was mentioned, but I didn’t even realise it was serious until I looked it up.
We were lucky. my youngest had a type of viral meningitis. In fact, she didn’t need any of the antibiotics or antivirals that she was pumped with for 5 days; or to be used as a pin-cushion as her tiny veins failed on five ocassions and it took an hour of trying and re-trying each time to get a new canula in.
But I cannot regret a moment of how she was treated because until the detailed results of the lumbar puncture came back (which is what took 5 days) the type of meningitis was unknown and if it had been bacterial and untreated she could have had severe brain damage or died.
We were lucky. she probably would have been fine even if we hadn’t gone to the doctor, although she did need something to take the fever down. But I learnt something that new parents don’t seem to be told. Newborn babies (under 8-12 weeks) should never have a fever. If they do, take them straight to a GP.
For decent advice about meningitis, go to the Meningitis Trust website. My family’s brush with meningitis was fortunately minor but that isn’t always the case and I now tell all of my new-parent-to-be friends to be alert for fever in newborns. My baby had no other symptoms, but she still had meningitis. Please pass the word to all parents of newborns you know too. Thank-you.
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