My 9-year-old gets a low fever about once per month. Her pediatrician isn’t worried about it and says that kids just get sick a lot. What does the data say about the range of how often bigger kids get fevers?
––Worried Sick
Kids do get sick a lot! For example, this study from Germany in the 1990s suggests that a typical range for respiratory illnesses alone would be up to 11 per year in infancy, eight in preschool, and four as an older child. Children can get fevers from non-respiratory illnesses as well, meaning the actual incidence of fever is likely higher than this. Fevers are scary for parents but themselves not something to worry about — read the full 101 here.
Having said this, if your child is actually getting a fever 12 times a year, and it isn’t obviously accompanied by other cold symptoms, this is somewhat outside the norm. Although I often caution against obsessive data collection about our children (fun, but unproductive), this is a place where I would lean into it. I think you’d benefit from spending a few months recording these episodes. (How often do they really happen? How high is the fever? Is your child otherwise sick? Is there an obvious viral exposure?)
I suspect one of two things will come from this. One possibility is that, in reality, things are within the normal range, and it just feels like your kid is sick a lot (no judgment on this — this is how it feels to all of us). Then, you’ll be more reassured. A second possibility is you’ll find that this is actually happening more than would be expected and perhaps on some periodicity.
In the latter case, you’ve got more information to bring to your pediatrician to figure out what is going on. There are some possibilities. For example, there is something called periodic fever syndrome, which is characterized by periodic episodes of fever, averaging about once a month. This is not common, but it’s more common in children than adults.
There is a general point here: If you’re worried about something with your child and you’re meeting with their pediatrician, the more information you have, the better. This is how we get to the most productive conversations. Good luck.
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