TempoLife › Features › Fever and childrens medicine dosing by weight › febrile-seizure
Febrile seizures: what they look like and what to do
A fever-driven seizure looks terrifying and is almost always brief and harmless — here is the protocol and the exceptions.
This is a reference, not a prescriber: the package insert of the bottle in your hand outranks every number on this page, aspirin is never for children, and in a baby under three months any measured fever is urgent — call now, do not dose. If the child is on other medicines, or has a known liver, kidney or stomach condition, dosing belongs to a clinician.
What it is
A febrile seizure is a seizure triggered by a rapid rise in temperature in a young child — typically between six months and five years, and most often with the first spike of a viral illness. About one child in twenty has at least one, and there is a family tendency. The great majority are "simple": under five minutes, affecting the whole body, once in the illness — and they do not damage the brain, do not cause epilepsy and do not lower intelligence, however the moment feels to the parent watching.
What to do while it lasts
Put the child on their side on the floor, on something soft, away from anything hard or hot. Do not put anything in the mouth — not fingers, not spoons, not water; the tongue is not swallowed and nothing you insert helps. Note the time the shaking started. Stay with the child until it stops, then turn them on their side (recovery position) and let them sleep — the post-seizure sleep is normal and can be deep.
When it is not simple
Call emergency services if the seizure lasts more than five minutes, if it affects one side of the body only, if it repeats within the same illness, or if the child is under six months — the same features that make a febrile seizure "complex" and change the management. Any first febrile seizure should also be checked by a doctor afterwards, however simple it looked, both to confirm the diagnosis and to look at the cause of the fever.
Afterwards
The fever itself still needs its ordinary care — the seizure does not cure it, and the child can seize again with the next fever spike, which is why the medicine is sometimes given more readily in the following days, at the clinician's instruction. Parents understandably watch the thermometer closely afterwards; the evidence-based comfort is that the seizure was the fever's drama, not brain damage, and most children who have one never have a second.
Fever thresholds and red flags: the national paediatric guidance in the region. Dosing: the standard weight-based rules — paracetamol 15 mg/kg per dose every 4–6 hours, at most four doses a day (60 mg/kg/day ceiling); ibuprofen 10 mg/kg per dose every 6–8 hours, at most three doses a day (30 mg/kg/day ceiling), from 3 months and about 5 kg. Febrile seizures: the standard paediatric emergency guidance (simple vs complex, the five-minute line). Checked 2026-09-06.
Frequently asked questions
Does a febrile seizure cause brain damage?
No. Simple febrile seizures are brief, whole-body and under five minutes, and decades of follow-up studies show no brain damage, no effect on intelligence and no causation of epilepsy. The risk they carry is the risk of injury during the seizure — which is what the floor-and-side position is for.
Will it happen again?
Possibly — roughly one in three children who has one will have another with a later fever, usually within a year or two, and the tendency runs in families. Recurrence still does not mean epilepsy; the child simply outgrows the age window, and almost all febrile seizures stop after age five.
Should I give medicine to prevent another one?
Regular paracetamol does not prevent febrile seizures — the seizure is triggered by the temperature rise, not by the height of the fever — so routine dosing for prevention is not the practice. Where a clinician has instructed otherwise for a specific child, their instruction stands.
The rest of the fever pages
Fever at every age
All seven fever pages, with the thresholds, the ladders and the red flags.
What counts as a fever at each age
The measurement thresholds, why the site matters, and the one age where any fever is urgent.
Measuring temperature: which thermometer at which age
Rectal is the reference, the armpit is the compromise, and the ear is only as good as its aim.
Paracetamol dosing by weight
15 mg per kilogram per dose, every 4–6 hours, four doses a day at most — with the arithmetic worked.
Ibuprofen dosing by weight
10 mg per kilogram per dose, every 6–8 hours, from 3 months and about 5 kg — and the situations where it is the wrong choice.
A medicine log that answers the call
TempoLife timestamps every dose so the daily ceilings stay visible and the doctor gets exact numbers instead of a guess.