Are You Risking Your Baby's Life?
Written: Jun 15 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to use, inexpensive
Cons: Highly inaccurate, most parents read too early, inaccurate information may lead to dangerous mistakes
The Bottom Line: Highly inaccurate and far more difficult to use than it appears. Avoid this at all costs, invest in a digital and/or rectal thermometer.
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| WorkingMomof2's Full Review: Forehead Fever Thermometer |
Every parent knows the terror that a fever can bring, especially when it's your little one that's burning up. We've been told to call the pediatrician for any fever over a certain level, but most of us really, really hate to get out that rectal thermometer. Ear thermometers aren't supposed to be used in babies under 6 months of age, and children of almost any age hate having their temperature taken. It's natural, then, that most of us would want to try an inexpensive and simple thermometer. Enter the Baby Tech Forehead Fever Thermometer. Just stick it on the baby's forehead and it changes color? What could be easier than that?
The Product Basics
This product is a simple glossy strip, about the size of a normal sized bandaid. It contains a liquid crystal, and has numeric markings on the outside. You hold it against your child's forehead, and the colors on the band change color to allow you to read the temperature of the child. The degrees are printed right on the thermometer, so you can simply watch the strip until the color turns green (indicating the correct temperature).
This sounds so easy - but does it work? Well, in my humble opinion, yes and no -- and primarily no.
Pros & Cons of this thermometer
This is extremely easy to use, in theory. You hold it firmly against the child's forehead, and watch for the color to change. In reality, this takes about 15-20 seconds total, during which your little darling is squirming and no happier about holding still than with an armpit measurement. I had this thermometer, and didn't ever realize that I was supposed to have left it on for 15 seconds. Also, the temperature doesn't always ring in as a true number. The manufacturer says this is okay, and that the right "...temperature is mid-way between that indicated by the tan and blue colors". Somehow, this didn't quite satisfy me, especially when I wasn't sure if I'd had good enough contact for long enough anyway!
Secondly, the area should be completely dry, and the child is supposed to have rested for 5 minutes before taking the temperature, and wait 30 minutes after eating or drinking anything. In reality, my kids sweat - and sweat a lot, especially when they're hot with a fever. They've usually been thrashing around soundly if they're uncomfortably hot, and I certainly don't want to wait another 30 minutes just because my child ate or drank something recently. When I need a temperature, I really need it now!
The main problem with this thermometer, though, is not in the challenges of using it. Relative to other types of thermometers, this is the simplest to use other than an ear thermometer. For about $60 less than an ear thermometer, though, many parents will buy this one first! Unfortunately, this is a decision that could potentially place their children at great risk. You see, this is - to be blunt - the most inaccurate thermometer on the market.
How Inaccurate Is It, and Are You Sure?
I have two reasons for saying that this is not just inaccurate, but dangerously so. The first is that we actually had one of these thermometers, and I found it to be wildly inaccurate. The second is that I later researched it, and found dozens of articles all documenting the clinical inaccuracy of this product. I'm not just talking about the Baby Tech forehead thermometer, either -- Gerber makes one of these as well, and I believe there is (or was) another brand out there also. All of them rely on the same basic technology -- and it's dangerously unsafe.
Now this may sound like an over-reaction... and it may be. But imagine, if you will, if your child felt warm. So you took his temperature, and found it to be about 101. It stayed at that level for several hours, varying somewhat, while you waited for the Tylenol (or whatever medication you had given him) to kick in. You called the pediatrician, and they told you to monitor him and call back if it went above 103 or didn't go down with the medication. You watched him carefully, but were constantly reassured by the forehead thermometer, which seemed to vary between 100 and 102.
Would you be as reassured if you knew that the forehead thermometer was the least accurate of all thermometers, and in fact was wrong over 60% of the time? In fact this is true, and it's especially inaccurate for temperatures over 100 degrees. This is documented in many places, and I will give you references below to do your own research. The bottom line is that almost every pediatric and medical site out there recommends not using this type of thermometer due to its inaccuracy.
Other Tips for Taking Temperatures
I'm not going to go into the entire debate about oral versus armpit versus rectal temperatures. Just know that the rectal temperature is the gold standard for measuring a fever. Using your hand to detect a fever sometimes works, especially if the child is very hot, but often misses mild fevers and may be affected by other external factors (external heat, activity level, clothing, crying, etc.).
Bearing this in mind, it's worth trying to calm your child down if they're crying vigorously, try to wait if they've been running around a lot, and to removing excess heavy clothing to reduce the external heating effect before taking your child's temperature. In reality, this isn't always possible... but it's important to know that these factors can cause a child to heat up.
There is another option that uses the skin temperature, and taking advantage of the fact that the temporal artery is close to the skin's surface. This is a brand new (but extremely pricey) electronic forehead thermometer that uses infrared to measure the temperature on the forehead, if you're looking for a non-invasive technique with a higher accuracy rate I'd look into this instead. Philip's Sensor Touch will run you about $90, though, so you may want to re-think your objections to that rectal thermometer!
The Bottom Line
For us, the Baby Tech Forehead Thermometer strip was an inaccurate and undependable product. I will admit that it was incredibly simple to use, and certainly affordable at under $5 each. However, I can't get peace of mind on my child's health when the thermometer gives me inconsistent and unreliable results. Furthermore, I personally found that it was a little baffling to know whether the reason the colors were "inbetween" measurements was due to the actual temperature falling inbetween, or if I had done something wrong (forehead too wet, or moving the thermometer too soon, etc.)
Having researched it, I am glad that I made the decision to toss out this thermometer. I still have a variety of thermometers to choose from, including several digital ones that "beep" when the final temperature is reached, an ear thermometer, and a rectal thermometer. Since we make decisions about how to treat our children based upon the information that a thermometer provides, isn't it worth a few dollars more to make sure that that information is accurate?
I shudder to think of what decisions I might have made when my son's life was (literally) at risk due to fever, had I used an inaccurate thermometer. For me, the inconvenience and few dollars additional cost for a more accurate option is a cheap price to pay for my child's safety.
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I've attached a few references for you to look at, including some that I used for the statistics quoted above. I hope you found this information useful!
http://www.brainerddispatch.com/stories/041701/hea_0417010009.shtml
http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/sfenvironment/pages/sup_pages/victories/thermometer_ban.htm
http://www.parenting.com/parenting/article/baby/0,,530,00.html
http://www.babymd.net/fever.htm
http://directory.akronchildrens.org/tips/pdfs/SI705.pdf
http://www.healthinfocus.co.uk/fcgi/cmsf.pl/search.display.3875!main?mod=search&k=Fever
http://www.open.org/~kelly/ccpic/hs/fever.html
http://www.asiamedicinenet.com/Script/Main/art.asp?li=AMN&ArticleKey=361
http://www.ds-health.com/fever.htm
http://www.royalneighbors.org/trn/1998/1112/lifestyles.htm
http://www.ucihealth.com/News/UCI%20Health/peds.htm
http://www.ccmh.net/AskANurse/LetterH/How_Measure_Temp.htm
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WorkingMomof2
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Member: Amy
Location: Southern California
Reviews written: 313
Trusted by: 540 members
About Me:
Every time I close the door on reality it comes in through the windows.
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