It is often seen that infants and young children show recurrent events of fever. The episode is repeated every now and then getting the parents anxious. In some children, the relapse interval is greater while in others, the fever is repeated at relatively lesser interval.

To understand the cause, first it is important to know about the mechanism of body which causes fever. Our body is programmed to fight against any sort of viral, bacterial or other pathogenic attacks. This ability of body is known as immunity. This is partly inherent since birth but mostly acquired after the birth. One such mechanism of fighting the infection is raised temperature of body what is known as fever. When the pathogen attacks our body, as an immune response, the body increases its temperature so as to make the pathogen inactive or dead. Hence, fever in itself is not any disease. Its just the indication that some pathogen has attacked our body.

Now, a new born baby acclimatizes itself to the environment. During that phase, several pathogenic attack occur, and the body gradually learns to fight against them and minimize their (pathogen’s) future attack. This process of learning is a life long event, but is more frequent during the phase when the child starts going to school. He is exposed to a less protected environment in comparison to his home, where he has spent most of the time till now. Hence, frequent infection and resulting fever are not uncommon and is a process of acclimatization.

Parents need not to worry, unless there are some other symptoms in addition to fever. Generally, fever caused are viral in nature. So, antibiotics, which are meant to kill bacteria, are not of much use in these cases. Hence, better they should be avoided. Fever should be simply treated with paracetamol. In case, the fever doesn’t subside with the latter, a mixture of paracetamol and ibuprofen are found to give the desired result. In case of cough, a general cough-syrup may be administered.