Thermometers

Imagine you wake up in the middle of the night to your child moaning uncomfortably and shivering uncontrollably. You place your hand on their forehead and realize they are burning up. All you want to know is how high the temperature is. Seems like a simple task until you reach into your medicine drawer only to find a myriad of devices that you have bought or friends have given you. There you find a digital rectal, oral, pacifier, axillary, forehead scanning and ear thermometer. And deep in the back of the draw you pull out an old glass mercury thermometer left over from your childhood. Now you are sweating and wondering what to use.

As a pediatrician, parents commonly ask me questions about fever. As a new father, I understand that when your child is sick and has a fever, it can be one of the most concerning and frightening situations that you encounter. Fever is defined as any temperature of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. Although taking a temperature may appear to be a mundane task, the location at which the temperature is taken as well as the accuracy of the thermometer is very important. For example, the difference between 100.3 and 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit in a child under two months of age may be the difference between seeing your doctor in the office or going emergently to the hospital for a battery of unpleasant tests. As a result, infants under two to three months of age should always use a rectal thermometer. Rectal temperatures are the most accurate. After two to three months of age you can take your child's temperature using an axillary (underarm) thermometer and then by five years of age your child should be able to use an oral thermometer. Unfortunately, technology has yielded us a slew of choices when it comes to taking a child's temperature, making this process very confusing.

As a result, I have compiled the five best of the best and the five best of the rest thermometers to use in children. As you will see the price of the thermometer does not necessarily indicate the usefulness of it. In fact, I recommend steering clear of ear thermometers because they are both expensive and tend to be inaccurate at any age. Furthermore, properly dispose of your old glass mercury thermometers due to the toxic risks of mercury. Stick to your run-of-the-mill digital rectal, axillary, or oral thermometers to get you safely through the night.