After we have discovered that babies or young toddlers have higher core body temperature and also, the differences between heat exhaustion and heat stroke,
\nlet us focus on the neurological impairment or cognitive dysfunction (medical term) after babies or young toddlers had experienced heat stroke.<\/p>\n
According to the medical term cognitive, it refers to mental abilities and processes, and includes memory, knowledge, attention, reasoning, problem solving, and comprehension.\u00a0 Research showed that babies and young toddlers that had experienced even a mild heat stroke, there may be permanent cognitive impairment damage, especially in the short-term memory, processing of information, and attention aspects and worst of all, cell death.\u00a0 In one study of volunteers, results show that there was memory impairment with temperature of only 101.8\u00a0\u030a F (38.8 \u030a C), which is only about 2 to 3 degrees higher than normal baby body\u2019s temperature (97.5 \u030a F or 36.4 \u030a C)!<\/p>\n
There are three main stages of neurological effects of heat stroke, please see the below points for explanation including Central Nervous Dysfunction (CNS).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CNS dysfunction:\u00a0includes delirium (abrupt change in the brain that causes mental confusion and emotional disruption), coma, epileptic seizures (repetitive seizures due to disorder of the brain) and\/or convulsions.<\/p>\n
Acute stage (early stages 2-48 hours after heat
\nstroke):<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Convalescent stage (recovery stage):<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Late permanent stage:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Think of how traumatic it must be for an adult to live through these experiences, and then ask yourself why would we, as responsible parents, allow our babies to go through these awful symptoms themselves?<\/p>\n
Pic:<\/p>\n