As a mother of three I always feel a bit uncertain when my children have a temperature. Why? Because when I take the temperature I get one value. Not more. And I have no idea if the temperature is rising or decreasing in this very moment. Of course I am observing my child: Does he look very awful or is he a bit better now? Did he drink enough? Is he hungry? So I try to use these observation to try to determine how acute the current situation is. And when I think it is acute I take some action, usually calf wraps first. And afterwards, there´s the same problem again. How do I really determine how effective that was?
Last night, I put my cosinuss° One in-ear heart rate monitor that is also taking the body temperature into the ear of my feverish son. It took me some trying since it is not his size but finally I had an excellent signal for heart rate and body temperature. I could see the following interesting things:
- His resting heart rate was aroung 115-120 bpm and when his temperature began rising, his heart rate went higher, too.
- When his body temperature rose over 40°C I tried calf wraps to bring his temperature down again. By monitoring his temperature with the cosinuss° One I finally saw and was astonished how fast and effective calf wraps worked!
That was the first time ever that I really saw the effects of an action taken when my children were sick! And it was a great feeling because that shows me that I can help and that it works what I´m doing to help.
This is one of the reasons why we are adapting the cosinuss° One now for children, creating degree°. Because seeing the temperature continuously helps parents to deal with fever.
