Infants and children often develop fevers. However, as all of our patients have urologic problems, we become very concerned, as fever may be the sign of a kidney infection. Doctors can more effectively diagnose problems when a temperature is taken, so you should become familiar with how to properly take your child's temperature. Rectal thermometers are easy to use in infants, while older children usually do well with oral thermometers. Have the proper thermometer handy, should your child feel warm so that you can obtain an accurate temperature reading.

If your child has a temperature over 101.6° you should obtain a urine specimen. This is the only way to know whether the fever is due to a urine infection (UTI). Obtain the urine with the materials we provided and take it to a nearby Spectrum Health Lab (with the labs slips provided) or to your primary care doctor for evaluation. Make sure that both a urinalysis and culture is done on the specimen. (You may use the labs slips provided) Please give our office a call to let us know the symptoms your child is having and that a urine specimen was dropped off.

A urinalysis (u/a) provides almost immediate information on the urine, but the report may take a day to be returned to the doctor. A culture (c/s) takes approximately 48-72 hours for the final result and is more accurate than the u/a. Give our office a call after the allotted time for a result. If the culture is positive, then an appropriate antibiotic will be prescribed. Not every antibiotic will take care of every infection.

Many children with urologic problems take daily antibiotics. If your child takes a daily antibiotic, any UTI that develops could be hard to treat. While children don't become immune to the antibiotic, the bacteria do. Hence the germs that grow in the urine of children on antibiotics are likely to be strong and possibly hard to treat. If your child with fever has reflux, UTI, and is on preventative antibiotics, we often consider admission to the hospital for IV antibiotics in order to protect the kidneys from damage by resistant bacteria. Recent studies show that if a UTI is aggressively treated within 24 hours of the onset of fever, very few children will develop renal scars. Make sure that you contact your primary care doctor and our office as well when UTI's occur.