Child's hands and feet are cold. How to help a child with a high temperature. The opinion of Dr. Komarovsky

12.07.2019

It is hard to argue with the fact that most parents look forward to the birth of their miracle with great impatience and awe. A small child not only brings joy to the family, but also completely changes the usual way of life of their parents. Additional worries and troubles appear, which are not always pleasant.

Young mothers do not leave their babies a single step. At the same time, they are very sensitive to their breathing and every movement. If suddenly it seems to them that something went wrong, the baby behaved strangely, then they immediately panic, and there is not always a reason for it - in most cases, mothers just wind themselves up.

However, sometimes some important clues that are worth looking out for go unnoticed. Often parents are faced with such a phenomenon as cold hands in a child, and in this situation a lot of questions arise as to why the child has cold hands and it is so safe.

Causes of cold hands in a child

If it is noticed that the child has cold hands for a long time, then the reasons may be as follows:

vegetative-vascular dystonia;
anemia caused by iron deficiency in the body;
diseases of the thyroid gland.

In the case when the baby almost always has cold hands, it is necessary to show him to the doctor. This is done in order to confirm or refute guesses regarding the presence of a particular disease.

In infants, a condition such as cold hands is quite acceptable, and this is not necessarily the fault of the disease. In young children, the process of thermoregulation occurs in a different way, compared to adults. Therefore, a situation may arise when it is hot outside, and the child's hands are very cold.

If, along with this, nothing negative happens to the child, that is, he does not cry, sleeps and eats well, then there is no reason for concern. But if everything is different, the baby practically does not eat or sleep, then it is best to seek the advice of a specialist.

Causes of cold hands in children of different ages

If we consider cold hands in a child who is from 5 to 7 years old, then their cause may be dystonia. In fact, there is nothing wrong - it is at this age that children are actively developing and growing. As a rule, blood vessels do not always keep up with such a rapid pace of development. In this case, experts recommend that parents monitor their child's diet, which should contain as many vitamin-containing foods as possible, as well as foods with a large amount of minerals.

If cold hands are observed from 12 to 17 years old, then this may indicate that dystonia is still present, and should not be overlooked. Action needs to be taken here.

There is a widespread belief among parents that a child has cold limbs for the reason that he is experiencing stress or is very tired at school. But as practice shows, this statement has only partial validity. If you closely monitor the problem, then there is an opportunity to prevent the further occurrence of a vegetative crisis. If it was not possible to avoid this phenomenon, then the problem can be solved with the help of medicines.

It is undesirable to select medicines yourself - here you need a specialist consultation. Otherwise, the child may develop addiction to the drug, and in the future he will not be able to do without it.

In some cases, cold hands may not be due to stress or illness, but to the fact that the child freezes over. Often there are situations when his body temperature rises due to colds, but his hands remain cold. As a rule, as soon as the child fully recovers, everything falls into place, the problem of cold hands disappears.

What to do if your child has cold hands?

1. Initially, it is necessary to consult with a doctor for the presence of diseases - for example, anemia or ailments associated with the thyroid gland.

2. The child should lead an active lifestyle. Physical exercise will make it possible to establish the blood circulation process.

3. You need to carefully monitor the diet. The child should eat hot meals every day.

4. Special attention should be paid to clothes and shoes - they should be as comfortable as possible and in no case tight.

5. In the cold season, it is recommended that the child be given tea with ginger, as it has antibacterial effects and enhances immunity.

Newborn babies often have cold hands. Sometimes you can even notice a bluish tint on them. But this is not at all an indicator of illness. Cold extremities are the result of a poorly developed circulatory system. If the child still has good appetite and sleep, there is no particular cause for concern. As a rule, the situation returns to normal by 3-4 months.

What are the causes of cold hands in children?

The reason for cold hands in infancy is clear. But sometimes this problem does not go away with age, and parents seriously think about what to do with it. So, if you constantly observe cold extremities in your baby, the probable reasons may be:

thyroid disease;

vegetative-vascular dystonia;

Iron-deficiency anemia.

First of all, the possibility of these diseases should be eliminated by showing the child to a doctor. The most common cause is vegetative-vascular dystonia. Typically, it occurs in children between about 5 and 7 years of age. During this period, the body is actively developing and the vessels often do not have time to adapt. This can also happen during adolescence. The main thing is that parents need to ensure that there are enough vitamins and minerals in the child's diet. If dystonia persists at a later age (from 12 to 17 years), the teenager should be shown to a doctor. Timely treatment will relieve him of many problems.

Also, the cause may be a disease of the thyroid gland. When its functions are violated, the production of hormones decreases. The body does not receive enough energy, and the limbs begin to freeze.

Iron deficiency anemia can lead to "cold hand syndrome" due to a lack of such an important element as iron. It causes a rapid dissipation of heat in the body, and as a result - freezing of the limbs.

A temporary cold snap in children can be caused by hypothermia or a cold. This leads to a violation of heat transfer and vasoconstriction. Typically, when the child recovers, the problem goes away on its own.

What to do if your baby has cold hands?

There are some tips that can help you get rid of the cold hand problem in children:

Eliminate the possibility of the above conditions by seeing your child's doctor.

Make sure your baby is active. It will not be superfluous to do exercises in the morning. It helps tone the body and improve blood circulation.

It is necessary that the child's clothes are of high quality: they sit freely and do not hinder movement.

It is important to pay attention to the baby's diet. It must contain the required amount of carbohydrates, fats, proteins and trace elements. It is also necessary to give the child hot food.

Ginger will not be superfluous in the diet of the whole family. This plant has a warming and tonic effect. But it is important not to forget that ginger should not be given to too young children. It is also undesirable for people with stomach ulcers.

The problem of cold hands in children worries a large number of parents. She does not pose a great danger to the health of the baby. The main thing is to take action on time. We hope that the above tips will help your little one get rid of this problem.

All parents, especially young mothers, do not miss the opportunity to be nervous about the health of their beloved children. It happens that the excitement is in vain, but sometimes it is justified, and the attentiveness of the mother saves you from big trouble. If, for no apparent reason, at normal body temperature, the child has cold hands and feet, this may indicate good thermoregulation of the body. But only if we are talking about an infant (up to two years old). In older children, these symptoms should be alarming.

Are the kids free from cold?

Recently, contrary to the beliefs of grandmothers, doctors strongly recommend not wrapping up children in the first months and years of their life. It is very easy not to calculate with insulation and overheat the baby. The fact is that for crumbs up to two years old, the mechanism that maintains the temperature regime has not yet been fully formed. Constantly cold feet and hands can be considered a normal occurrence in an infant, this is caused by the peculiarities of heat transfer and should not worry the parents. Over time, everything will return to normal, and after two years, such a problem will not arise.

The skin is the first to come into contact with the environment, its vessels adjust to the outside temperature, narrowing or expanding. You need to pay attention not to the temperature, but to the color of the skin:

If the legs and arms are cold, but of a normal pink color, that's okay. The skin adjusts to the ambient temperature, cooling the body. The body is hardened, which in the future will help to avoid endless colds.
Pale, bluish skin on the arms and legs, plus a feeling of icy coldness at normal body temperature should alert mom. This means that blood circulation in the legs and arms is slower. The reason may be severe hypothermia, blood vessels narrow, trying to keep the temperature, and the skin turns pale.

Mothers need to remember that for a baby, especially in the first months, overheating is more dangerous than hypothermia. Nature arranged it so that a baby can withstand prolonged cold more easily than even a short overheating.

For what reasons are the limbs freezing in older children?

The situation is a little different with children over two years old. Most often, problems arise in the fifth or seventh year of life. During this period, hands and feet may remain cold at normal temperatures for several reasons:

Vegetovascular dystonia, that is, a failure of the autonomic nervous system, which regulates the functioning of internal organs, and is also responsible for maintaining normal body temperature. With vegetative vascular dystonia, spasms occur, the vessels narrow. This explains why normal blood circulation in the legs and arms slows down. As a rule, with age, this condition goes away on its own, but a doctor's consultation will not hurt.
With great nervous excitability, the hands / feet of the child may also become cold. Any negative emotions, stress disrupt the normal heat exchange. Sometimes the palms become damp, although the hands remain cold. Calm and warm your baby, try to avoid stressful situations (although this is easier said than done).
A decrease in immunity can also explain why limbs are always freezing in children. If there is weakness, pale skin, sometimes the body "aches" and hands / feet are cold, then this may indicate a decrease in immunity or the first signs of anemia.
One of the reasons why a child always has cold extremities may be a thyroid disease. If the doctor has not confirmed vegetative vascular dystonia or anemia, it is worth consulting with an endocrinologist.
Cold hands in a child is one of the first symptoms of a high temperature (above 38-39 ° C). Sometimes it is difficult to tell by the appearance of a baby that he or she has a fever. If the arms and legs are cold, measure the temperature - this will help you not to waste time if the baby gets sick.

It is difficult to figure out on your own why exactly the arms and legs freeze? Do not postpone a visit to the pediatrician, it is better to prevent the disease than to cure it later. Do not hesitate to call a doctor at home or call an ambulance - your child's health is more important than anything else. For the same reason, do not self-medicate and self-diagnose - you can experiment on your health (if you really want to), but not on the health of children!

Ice skin at high temperature

If the temperature is elevated (38-39 ° C and above), then the hands / feet of children, as a rule, become cold. This is because the blood rushes to the internal organs to fight the disease. There is simply not enough blood pressure on the periphery (arms and legs). In this case, you need to give a warm drink and urgently call a doctor, without waiting for the temperature to rise to 39 ° C.

What to do before the doctor comes if the temperature is high (38-39 ° C and above), and the hands and feet are frozen:

If the skin has turned pale, the child is shivering, then this may indicate vasospasm. Antipyretic (especially fast-acting) is contraindicated in this case. The medicine will only make the spasm worse and make the situation worse. It is necessary to give an antispasmodic (best of all, no-shpu).
Cold hands and feet can and should be warmed. Rub them with your hands, rocking and soothing the baby. You should not use alcohol and alcohol-containing drugs, they improve heat transfer and even more cool the limbs.

Children react differently to high temperatures. Someone plays calmly even at 38 ° C (but this is still not a reason to wait for 39 ° C), but for someone it is already difficult to endure 37 ° C. At what point to call a doctor is up to mom to decide. But you will definitely need medical help!

How to keep your baby's limbs warm

Infants hardly react to cold hands and feet, but how acutely mothers react to this! If you want to help your baby, you should not wrap him up in a grandmother's fur coat, instead:

Do morning exercises, first help him move his arms and legs, as you grow up, do the exercises with him.
Stop overheating the crumb, let the body harden.
Check your clothes and shoes for movement - obstructed circulation in your legs and arms will cause you to freeze.

Mother's love is a tremendous power, use it wisely. Do not interfere with the baby's development and tempering, do not wrap the baby, let it run barefoot. But be careful - don't miss the moment when your little one needs help. Do not hesitate to consult a pediatrician once again, do not risk your child's health!

Many young mothers, noticing that a newborn has cold hands or a nose, think that the baby is freezing, so they begin to actively wrap up the baby. In fact, this is the mistake of most parents.

In infants, thermoregulation has not yet been completed, and it can only be finally formed by the age of 2 years. Babies react differently from adults to many things. For example, in a room where the temperature is about 18 degrees, an adult will freeze and feel uncomfortable, while a baby plays quietly in one diaper.

Baby's cold hands are just a temperature indicator of the baby's skin. Hot hands and feet indicate good blood circulation. If the limbs are cold, this means that there is a vasospasm in the integument of the skin. Such a reaction is considered a kind of sign of the body. This is how the newborn's immunity is formed for life. Young parents and especially grandmothers are very fond of dressing the child warmer. But it is worth knowing that, growing up, with the slightest draft or hypothermia, the baby will get sick, since his immunity is weakening and cannot cope with such minor irritants on his own.

If the baby is active, curious, in a good mood, plays and studies the outside world, but at the same time has a cold nose or hands, you should not sound the alarm or wrap up the baby.

This behavior suggests that the child is comfortable and the parents should not interfere.

Cold hands and feet in a baby are signs of a disease

If young mothers are still very worried about the health of their baby, then the first thing to do is to pay attention to the general condition of the child. A sign such as cold hands can be a symptom of a disease, but there are a number of other factors that sometimes signal a baby's health problem:

If the baby has lost his appetite, he began to eat poorly.
Temperature readings are higher than usual.
The kid has become moody and often cries.
Rashes appeared on the skin, an allergic reaction.

If the above signs are absent from the crumbs, then there is no point in sounding the alarm. The vegetative system in a newborn has not yet been formed, so babies are born not adapted to external conditions. Adaptation in newborns does not occur immediately, therefore, other processes will improve over time. In the case when the baby has several symptoms at the same time, then you should immediately consult a doctor.

Often, mothers or grandmothers, without realizing it, violate the correct formation of thermoregulation in the baby, dressing and wrapping it. Because of this, the child may develop diaper rash or prickly heat. It is necessary to correctly determine whether the baby is really cold with the back of your hand. You need to touch not the arms or legs, but the chest.

If your baby's body temperature is the same as your hand, then there is no cause for concern. In the case when the hand turns out to be warmer than the baby's body, then it is necessary to rub, dress it warmer or cover it with a blanket. When the baby gets warm, he can calmly fall asleep, therefore, you will have no reason to worry.

How to improve blood circulation in a newborn

In order to help normalize thermoregulation in a child more quickly, several procedures can be performed. The main of these procedures is massage. As a rule, they massage not only the body, but also the arms and legs, rub the feet. Such manipulations have a number of positive qualities:

normalization of body processes;
strengthening muscles;
improvement of well-being.

From the moment the heir was born, our life is filled with new joy, happiness, which is necessarily accompanied by natural worries and worries about the little person. For any mother, the health, happiness and development of the child is the main desire and aspiration, so it is not surprising that young women pay a lot of attention to medical issues related to the child.

One of the most common problems that moms come to the pediatrician with is the low temperature of the baby's hands and feet.

Let's find out what can cause cold extremities in children, how dangerous this problem can be and how you can cope with it.

Causes

Let's start with the smallest kids. Heat exchange in the body of newborn children (from birth to 6 months) is still imperfect, since during this period the little person adapts to the new world around him. During the first months after birth, the temperature of the body and limbs of the baby
but it may differ significantly, and there is nothing unnatural in this. In this case, it will be enough to wear warm socks and mittens made of soft natural material, for example, a bike.

If the newborn eats well, is in a good mood, you should not worry that his limbs are cold. But if this condition is accompanied by vagaries, rash, other skin rashes, fever, poor appetite or lethargy, the baby should be shown to the pediatrician, since these signs may be the cause of any disease.

In an older child, at the age of 4-7 years, rapid growth may be the cause of constantly cold hands and feet. There is nothing terrible in this, since such a state is caused by the active development of all organs and systems, and therefore the vessels often simply do not have time to adapt to this process, shrink, as a result of which blood circulation is impaired.

However, rapid growth is far from the only possible cause of cold limb syndrome in children. Let us find out why even a preschool child and adolescent can have constantly cold feet and hands.

Decreased immunity. Cold extremities, accompanied by lethargy, apathy, pallor, rapid fatigue, deterioration of brain activity (as a rule, children in such cases begin to lag behind in school) may be the result of poor nutrition.

Even an adult and mature person needs a rational, nutritious diet to maintain vitality and generate energy. And for a growing and still such a weak organism, this need is doubly important, because in order to grow and develop correctly, it needs vitamins, micro- and macroelements, a sufficient amount of fats, proteins and carbohydrates.

Insufficient nutrition, unhealthy foods such as chips, nuts, croutons, fast food, soda, popcorn, negatively affect health, cause a decrease in immunity and, as a result, iron deficiency anemia.

A poor diet also lowers blood pressure, which can lead to lower temperatures in children’s hands and feet.

Thyroid problems. The thyroid gland is a key link in the hormonal system of the whole body. With a deficiency of thyroid hormones, metabolic processes slow down, manifested by ice limb syndrome.

Girls are exposed to this problem more often than boys (about 5 times), as well as children living in ecologically disadvantaged areas.

Neurocircular (or vegetative-vascular) dystonia. The autonomic nervous system plays an important role in the life of the body - it constantly controls the heart contractions, the work of all systems and organs, the respiratory rate, etc. That is why the disruption of its work entails muscle spasm and circulatory disorders.

Dystonia, in turn, can be caused by various factors - increased nervous excitability, stress, anxiety, lack of sleep, drinking coffee, tea, energy drinks, alcohol, unhealthy lifestyle, smoking, chronic lack of fresh air.

Often this problem goes away with age on its own, however, if the lifestyle is wrong, it can remain forever.

Lack of physical activity. The reason for cold extremities can be commonplace - hypothermia and wearing tight shoes. Often, children, especially adolescents, for the sake of dubious fashion or as a result of ordinary absent-mindedness, can neglect wearing gloves and warm socks in the cold season. As a result of being on the street, the hands and feet of the child are cooled, which causes real horror among caring mothers, fathers and grandmothers.

What to do?

If you notice that the child has cold limbs, do not ignore the situation.

To make sure that there is no disease, take the baby to the pediatrician - a specialist will help you understand the problem and will prescribe the necessary tests and studies, if necessary. If the cause of constantly cold hands and feet in a child is nevertheless a serious illness, it requires immediate treatment, because many illnesses in childhood can become chronic and "grow up" together with the person.

If the specialist does not find any pathology, pay attention to the lifestyle and nutrition of your heir.

To strengthen your immune system and get rid of the problem, heed the following tips:

make your child's life active - do not allow him to sit for hours at a computer or smartphone, teach him to play sports and help him fall in love with an active lifestyle. Do not allow to skip physical education lessons, often walk together in the forest, park or near water bodies;

Do not swaddle babies in thick blankets, this will only exacerbate the problem. Allow the baby to actively move the arms and legs;
do not wear tight or uncomfortable shoes on your baby. This is especially true of teenage girls who love to flaunt in high heel shoes. When buying shoes for a preschooler, make sure that there is a space of at least one centimeter between the thumb and the toe of the product;
in the cold season, make sure that the heir is dressed in comfortable and warm clothes. But you shouldn't overdo it, dressing up the crumbs like cabbage, as this will lead to the fact that the baby will simply sweat in the cold;
monitor the nutrition of your son or daughter. It should be complete, rational, contain all the substances necessary for a person at this age - trace elements, vitamins, fiber, carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Fresh and / or boiled vegetables, cereals, fruits and juices, herbs, eggs, grain bread must be present in the daily diet. Make sure your child has a hot first course at least once a day. Also include in his diet ginger (fresh or dried) - this fruit has wonderful blood-warming abilities, and also helps to strengthen the immune system;
monitor the psychological health of the crumbs. Take an interest in his relationships with peers, friends, never refuse moral support, imbued with his problems and be ready to take them seriously. Remember that emotional problems can easily turn into physiological ones.

As you can see, there can be many reasons why a child has constantly cold feet and hands. If such a symptom is found, it is imperative to take the crumbs to a doctor in order to make sure that there is no serious illness or, if necessary, start treatment.