Wellbeing

Manage your child’s fever at home

If you have a school-going child at home, s/he has probably taken ill sometime in the last two months. Common cold, flu and fever are all uninvited guests in the receding monsoons. Apart from what the doctors prescribe, there are some things you can do at home to treat and manage fever in kids:

Mix one teacup fresh lime juice in tender coconut water and give it to the kid to drink now and then.

Give the kid a decoction of neem leaves with pepper powder.

Prepare a decoction by boiling one fistful of washed black tulsi leaves in a glass of water till it is reduced to half the quantity; either add jaggery when the decoction is hot or honey when it is cool. Give two tsp of the juice, thrice a day, for three to five days.

Warm six leaves of Coleus amboinicus (doddapathre) on a warm frying pan after putting off the fire. Extract the juice from the warm leaves.

Administer one tsp of the juice with honey three to four times a day.

Try tea made from fenugreek seeds.

Boil one tsp tulsi leaves with one tsp powdered cardamom in one teacup of water. Give ¼ cup of this decoction with milk and sugar, a few times a day.

Soak ripened leaves of vasa (adusoge) in warm water, crush and extract the juice. Mix one tsp of the juice with sugar candy (misri) and administer after food at night.

Prepare a hot decoction of black pepper. Add a few tulsi leaves to the decoction when it is boiling. Cool and give one to two tsp twice in a day.

Mix one tsp of turmeric powder in a cup of warm milk and give thrice a day for three days.

Crush a fistful of fresh vasa leaves and mix in one cup of hot water. Strain the infusion after 15 minutes. Give two tsp of the infusion in the morning and evening for three days.

Also:

Wipe with clean towel when the child sweats.
Make the child sleep in a well-lit and ventilated room.
Do not cover the child with blankets, unless s/he has chills.