# Skin to skin reduces baby's fever...



## Carrruth (Aug 13, 2009)

Recently, someone asked if they could wear their baby when they had a fever. Yes! In fact, babywearing skin to skin helps reduce baby's fever! Babywearing in general is going to make baby much more comfortable and content when sick with a fever. But skin to skin contact has the added benefit of helping bring down baby's body temperature and decreases the amount of pain they feel!

So next time you're little one has a fever, put them in a carrier and enjoy the snuggles! Your little one will too!

Tip: Aren't able to have your shirt off to do skin to skin? Cut a V in an old T-shirt and no one will even know!


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## Carrruth (Aug 13, 2009)

Someone asked me to explain how this works, so I figured I would post it for everyone.

Basically, it's just like keeping your baby warm with skin to skin, only in reverse. Our large surface area (skin) make us much more efficient at regulating our body temperature than a baby is. By wearing a baby with a fever skin to skin, they are making body contact with something cooler than them. Their heat will automatically transfer to the cooler surface, in this case our skin, cooling them off. Then we will disperse their heat and cool ourselves off even further and therefor cool them off even more. Basically, we will be their cooling system since ours works better than theirs.

It is much easier for us to keep ourselves cool to help our baby then wait for their little bodies to try and cool off alone. By wearing shorts, drinking water, and simply sweating, we will keep ourselves cool and help reduce our baby's fever. It's not going to get rid of the fever completely, but it will significantly decrease it.

I got lucky and had a doctor who believes in the power of skin to skin, but I had never even heard of doing this with my first. So I thought it was worth sharing. Try it the next time you little one has a fever. It really works!


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