While fever is body's natural defense against infection, approximately five percent of children have what are classified as "simple" febrile seizures while running a fever.If anyone has a child who suffers from febrile seizures, take heart ... 99 percent of children outgrow them by time they are six years old and there are generally no ill after effects.
Febrile seizures can occur in babies as young as three months old. When child is running a fever, a seizure brought on by sudden rise of their body temperature can overtake them.
Febrile seizures look like epileptic attacks and they are one of most frightening events a parent can live through. These seizures happen only when a child has a fever and are not a precursor to epilepsy, although in about 1 percent of cases, febrile seizures are an indication of more complicated neurological problems.
When my older daughter was 18 months old, she had her first febrile seizure. Thankfully, I had read about them and knew what was happening. The first episode lasted less than two minutes and by time paramedics arrived, she was sleeping peacefully. I wish I could say that was her last febrile seizure. She had at least ten more in following four years, with last episode occurring when she was five-and-a-half-years-old.
While we tried to learn everything there was to know about these seizures, best explanation any doctor had was that they were hereditary. Sometimes I wonder about genetic conclusions doctors jump to. As far as my husband and I knew, no one in our immediate families had recurring febrile seizures, nor did our younger daughter ever have a febrile seizure. As we were told by numerous physicians to expect our other children to have them too, we were enormously relieved when we were spared yet another 5 years of anxiety and living in fear of dreaded fevers.