Baby Teething and Fever

Baby Teething and Fever is one of the main arguments discusses at the new parents. This kind of discourse is more present at the end of the first six months of the baby age when the first baby tooth is near to come.

Being parents make us part of our babies’ development in every stage and process, and one of these is the teething process. When you are a new parent and didn’t experience a similar before, one of the main questions that you can randomly do it is “Can have the baby fever during the teething process? And If Yes, what can be the causes?

I’m going to share with you in this article my experience with my baby teething, giving helpful information for the new parents, as I have learned about the baby teething from others.

My daughter is 28 months, and she’s in process with the four-second molars. So, I decided to write this article sharing our challenges and our experience in our teething journey. If you like to learn more about it, please keep reading.

What needs to know about Baby Teething Development?

Baby Teething is a physiologic process separated into two significant stages, in the eruption stage, and the shed one. A baby has from birth only 20 temporary teeth, which in most cases start to erupt from the sixth month of your baby and finish at 30-33 months of baby age.Baby Teething and Fever-Baby Teeth Eruption Chart

Anyway, every baby is different and individual in his development. In the two baby teething erupt charts that you can see here, you may notice the primary tooth development model from the American Dental Organization and, in the second, my daughter’s teeth development from birth up to now.

As you can see, my daughter teething erupts at the limit time or after the model period for the eruption.
I also know a lot of babies whos started the eruption from the forth month, so if your baby teething activity starts a bit faster, don’t worry about it. In this case, the only issue may be that the shed process began earlier.

If you may have any concern, in any case, contact your Pediatrics or your family dentist.Baby Teething and Fever- My Daughter Teeth Eruption Chart

 

Why are the teeth significant for us?

You know that we have in our mouth teeth, which varying in different shapes, sizes, and in their jaw’s location. Our teeth are helpful for our nutrition, our format face, and our communication.

  • Every tooth has a significant role and an individual function in the chewing process during our nutrition.
    By their function, they get the names, so we have the incisors and canines and molars for cut and chew our food. The teeth have the first role in the digestion function, and without them, we can not feed healthy.
  • Another role of our teeth is that they impact our visual image. So, by their shapes and location in our jaws, teeth give our face the form and appearance. Without our teeth, our face looks different, and you will notice, that teeth after teeth your baby’s face will have another shape.
  • The role of our teeth for communication is significant. The baby can start to pronounce the first words after the eruption of incisors. Their function is determinant in the right pronunciation and speaking process.
    We don’t have a lovely smile without our teeth. Our mimics and smiles are part of our daily communication and transmission of our emotional condition, and without our teeth, nothing from that can happen. Enjoy your baby’s smile!

Which are the symptoms that we can face during the Baby teething process?

When a baby starts the teething activity, many signs tell us that our baby teeth are ready or in the erupt process. Some of the most signs that I notice at my daughter teething process are:

  • Increase of saliva. After the third month, your baby may have an increased level of saliva caused by the salivary glands. Before the eruption of the first tooth and in continuing the other teeth, you will notice that the saliva will be at the highest level, to help the teething process.
  • Itchy gums. When the teething activity starts, your baby starts to bite different objects, like his toys, to itch the jaws, gums, and tooth location.
  • Swelling of the gums. Before the teeth erupt, you will notice that the place where your baby tooth will come out swell and redness. In this phase, you can see your baby sweet tooth in every moment.
  • Decreased immunity. The teething process in most of the cases is accompanied by a decrease in the immune system. My daughter always, in every tooth eruption, gets sick. The teething process is a physiologic development that every time can impact the child’s immunity and health.

How fever related to the baby teething process?

As I mentioned above, my daughter ills in many of the teeth eruptions that we faced until now. One of the main symptoms was fever in every case.

When we ask the pediatrician or dentist, any of them will accept that the teething process is not the real reason for the baby fever. Then, how can this occur? It is simple, our baby immunity decrease, and it is more exposed by vary disease, like season viruses, influence, tonsillitis, ears infections, etc..

The baby organism gets weaker during the teething eruption, and for that reason, any viral or bacterial disease can attack our baby health. For that, it is necessary to feed our baby in healthy ways boosting the baby system immunity. You must prepare that before, during, or after your baby teething process, your baby immunity will decrease, and the risk for getting ill is higher than other periods of your baby life.

Baby Teething and Fever-My Daughter Having a Fever

What kind of diagnosis has my daughter experienced during the teething process?

I’m going to share ith with you two situations from my daughter teething process.

The first One.
My daughter’s teething process was more evident in the six months. From birth, she was perfectly healthy, and she never gets sick during the first six months. Even during the vaccines, she has not a fever. I was happy with her development, and any indicator was over the average for her baby age.
One night, during the seven months, my daughter wakes up crying loudly, and her fever started to get higher in a few minutes. In the first measurement, her temperature was over 100°F (38°C) and continue to increase. I couldn’t stop her crying, and I didn’t experience a similar situation before. I am a breastfeeding mother, and usually, I calmed her by breastfeeding, but not this time. I suer dear moms, my daughter didn’t want to drink, and I didn’t know what to do, for calming her. I know that I need to take control of the fever, the first thing was to give her the paracetamol dosage but calming her was an impossible mission.
Fortunately, that night, we were at my sister’s house, mother of two beautiful girls, and what is more important, she is a nurse by profession. With many years of experience in neonatal reanimated, she tells me that my daughter crying comes from her ear. My baby, although only six months, continuing put her tiny hand over her ear. She indicated to me what causes her pain. So, keep in mind that your baby can communicate with you at any moment, focus on catching and understand the message.

The pediatrician confirmed my daughter’s ear infection. She also explains to me that the teething eruption was near, and all this process decrease the immune system. After one month, the first tooth erupts, and three days later also the second incisors.

For many babies, after the first tooth, the eight incisors erupt one after another in a short time, for one or two months. For my daughter, it was completely different. The first primary tooth erupts in September, and the last incisors came out next May.

In any case, she gets catarrh or influence, or laryngitis, or ear inflammation, before or after the tooth eruption.

The second Situation

The Second Situation was these last ten days, in the middle of the night, she starts straight away a fever. In a few minutes, her body temperature increases from 100°F (38°C) to 103°F (39.4°C). The first thing, I give her the antipyretic and start monitoring the temperature. Two days before, my daughter tells me that her teeth hurt, indicating the place of the lower second molar.

She continues with high fever for three days, a typical influence situation, with higher values ​​up 40 °C/104°F and shorter repetition time in the second day.
She had no other symptoms, only the fever, even her appetite was good.

We manage the temperature with antipyretics and baths. But the worse came later, after the third day, her gums inflamed, all the mouth filled with herpes, and she had un gingivitis inflammation. She stopped eating. I ask my dentist about it, and she described a cream that calms the pain. All this happens by the immunity decrease.
After a week, my daughter felt better, and one of the second molars will erupt soon. I can see a part of the tooth crown, but the skin membrane is not cracked yet.

So you can see that in any case, the main reason for the fever is not the teeth eruptions, but this physiologic teeth development can impact in sick situations that caused the baby fever.


How to deal with fever in these cases?

The fever is one of the symptoms, which need to take in control of having a healthy baby every time. When the body temperature is higher, we have a fever.

The first thing to do is to monitor the fever. The pediatricians always recommend that up to 38.5°C/101.3°F to not use the antipyretics or any other medicaments. In this way, our immune system can fight the infection or bacterial viruses that caused the high temperature. The recommendation is to interfere with antipyretics in case the fever is near 39°C/ 102°F because it can be helpful to combat infection and viruses.

But, be careful, we can’t joke with it. You may keep in mind that the temperature continues to increase at least 15-20 minutes after giving your baby paracetamol or similar medicaments. Our body indeed can afford a fever up to 40 °C/104°F for a limited time, but the damages that it can do in our health are prominent.

As a mother, I suggest not take a high risk with the fever. If you are at the first experience with your baby, then monitor and intervene in time. You don’t need to risk and let the temperature in the limits, because you don’t know your baby how can act by the antipyretics, baths, or compresses.

Proper nutrition is necessary. During a fever situation, a baby needs to consume a diet riched in liquids, like water, fresh fruit juice, soups, etc. During lowering the temperature, the body loses a lot of sweat, and for that need to keep our baby hydrated.

The bath is another method that needs to use for taking the high temperature under control. The water in the bathtub needs to be 2°C /36 °F lower than your baby temperature. The bath time must be at least 15-20 minutes, cooling the water little by little. You need to know that this method is only for a short time because the fever can be more aggressive a few minutes after the bath and get higher.
For this, I combine the bath with antipyretics for better and faster results.

The compresses are the tool that our mother used with us during our childhood, and they are useful at any stage. Keep in mind that they can be resultative combined with the other tools, for a fever not higher than 38.5°C. When we use compresses, we cool the outside part of the body, but inside our body, the high temperature did more aggressive.
Combining all the tools, we can take the fever under control.

Antipyretics must use up to 38.5°C/101°F, following the instructions for the dosage and the use. The dosage, in any case, is calculated by your baby weight and age. You calculate the daily dose, and you can separate it by hours. Paracetamol can take every six hours. If your baby temperature starts to increase before the six hours, you can combine with the bath. And if you can not control the fever, then consult with your baby pediatrician for the use of other medicaments like ibuprofen.

Baby Teething and Fever- My Daughter Using the Ball for Itching Gums

How to help our baby in the teething eruption?

The main thing is healthy nutrition, reach with vitamins, minerals, calcium, proteins, etc. to bust a healthy immune system. Baby nutrition must be a combination of veggies, fruit, meats, dairy, cereals, without industrial sugar, and limited use of salt. If you are a breastfeeding mother, it is better to continue breastfeeding at least the first year.

Teethers are the baby friends during the teething eruptions. We can prepare natural teether or purchase cooling teether or teether toys that can help our baby with the gums for teeth eruption. I give to my daughter cool veggies or fruit from the refrigerator, like carrot, cucumber, apples, pear, etc. since the sixth months.
You can purchase a cooling gel for teething, but don’t way any miracle. The cooling effect is only for a short time, and teething is a process that takes months. I used a cooling gel for my daughter, but she likes more to bite a carrot or a teether toy and itch her gums with them.
Anyway, you need to try all the tools offering your baby the maximal support in this process.


The Baby Fever isn’t the worse enemy.

When we face our health baby the situations for the first time, we can act in a varied way. Many of us can lose control and panic, seeing the baby suffering.
I want to encourage you, don’t do it. Don’t be afraid and panic. Take the control, following your pediatrician’s recommendation, and what you have learned by the other parents, including me.
Remaining calm is the key. Every parent must be calm before trying to care for her baby. Losing control of ourselves is worse than our baby fever, the real enemy.

I hope that this article has been helpful to you. I appreciate it if you share your baby teething experiences with me and feel free to share this article with your friends.

Thank you for your time

Alketa

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4 thoughts on “Baby Teething and Fever”

  1. Thanks for a very helpful article Alketa. Prior to reading this, I always associated the fevers that come with teething to the possibility that the baby could have eaten something dirty while trying to soothe their itchy gums and not physiologic development. Valuable lessons learnt here. I also knew that babies at a certain stage enjoyed nibbling at fruits and vegetables. I thought it was more for the color, taste and general curiosity. However, your emphasis of cool ones as a way to soothe the gums is a new trick learnt.

    We are Blessed.

    Reply
  2. wow you are  such a wonderful mother, you are paying attention to all the teething process of your child, baby teething is one of the experience that no mother will ever want to forget in a hurry. I had such a mixed experience for both my first and  my second daughter,  it wasn’t funny at all.  When my first daughter  start developing her first 2 teeth it was so painful to both her and me the mother, that pain of seeing your baby not  being comfortable. it became more severe when she start developing Molar teeth the tense become so much that both my mum and my mother in law had to come and assist me in taking care of her, and her tooth development lasted  between 6 months and 18 months. But it was totally different game in my second daughter, she never had fever or any of those symptoms throughout her teething period, no fever, no pain,no cold, good for me right, and her teething development was faster than her sisters own, she started her first tooth  at 4 months before 8 months  everything was ready. i was more relaxed and relieved, thanks to teething experience.

    Reply
    • Dear Eunice, thank you very much for sharing your experience with me. As mothers, we have to face many challenges with our child development, and we learn a lot of things during the way. 

      Despite everything, we are blessed being mothers. 

      Best wishes to you and your family.

      Alketa

      Reply

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