Meningitis is a disease that most often occurs precisely in childhood, when infections (viruses, bacteria, fungi) are easiest to overcome the protective barriers that enclose the brain, provoke the occurrence of inflammation on the shell closest to it. More often, the disease occurs in children born with a brain pathology (hydrocephalus, cerebral palsy, intrauterine damage to the brain by cytomegalovirus or Epstein-Barr virus), as well as in premature infants. Babies who have a birth defect in any of the links of the immune system are also much more likely to suffer meningitis. Signs of
children of this disease have some differences (compared with adults).
Where does meningitis come from?
A child’s disease can develop as a complication of purulent otitis media, rhinitis, sinusitis, sinusitis (secondary meningitis, signs in children of which must be carefully monitored if the child suffers such a disease). There is an option for the development of meningitis as a complication of viral diseases such as measles, acute respiratory viral infections, chickenpox, rubella, mumps, and enterovirus infection. The most dangerous is meningococcal meningitis, which can be infected:
- from a microbe carrier (that is, a person who feels healthy);
- from an adult or a child undergoing meningococcal nasopharyngitis (red throat and purulent discharge from the nose, accompanied by a rise in temperature for 1-3 days);
- from a patient in whom this bacterium caused inflammation of the lining of the brain.
This meningitis is most dangerous. Its incubation period is 2-3 days. Then symptoms appear, one of the characteristic signs of which is a hemorrhagic rash, described below.
How is meningitis manifested in children?
Children, like adults, can say that they have a headache. Parents also notice that the child has a fever. But if the baby is not talking yet, how can meningitis be suspected? Symptoms in children of this disease are as follows:
1. The child becomes more lethargic, sleepy.
2. Vomiting may occur, regardless of the meal.
3. Elevated body temperature.
4. In infants, swelling of the large fontanel can be noticed (normally it is located at the same level with the bones of the skull).
5. The child assumes an extended posture in bed, often throwing his head back.
6. Negatively reacts to bright light, loud sounds, music.
7. Refuses food, sleepy.
8. There may be convulsions with impaired consciousness and respiratory arrest at any (even up to 38 degrees) body temperature.
9. If you raise the baby by the armpits, he will pull the legs to the chest.
10. With meningococcal and some other meningitis, a dark rash appears on the body (primarily on the buttocks and legs). It can be lilac, brown, dark red. Its characteristic feature is that if you press on the stain with a transparent container (glass, jar) or glass, it does not fade. This means that the skin in this place is saturated with blood.
A rash with such characteristics acquires a tendency to merge with each other, as well as to the appearance in some places of necrosis (necrosis) of the skin and underlying tissues.
In case you see some kind of suspicious rash, especially against the background of an increase in body temperature, urgently call an ambulance. Even if this is not meningitis, signs in children of such a nature as a rash are a reason for hospitalization and treatment in an infectious diseases hospital.