In a paper presented over 100 years ago (1896) at a meeting of the American medical Association, Dr. S.W. Foster said the following about teething:
“The [teething] child becomes wakeful, restless, and fretful, refuses nourishment; the alimentary canal becomes more active, diarrhea follows, and if relief is not given, relaxation of the vital forces follows, and we have nausea, vomiting, confulsions, paralysis, and not infrequently, death.” (Source)
Fortunately, modern medicine has come a long way since the late 1800’s and we now know a lot more about teething.
Want to know what symptoms teething does cause? Learn about ten real teething symptoms.
10 Symptoms that Teething Doesn’t Cause
1 – Congestion
2 – Diarrhea
3 – Rashes that aren’t on the face
4 – A high fever (teething can cause a minor fever)
5 – Nausea
6 – Convulsions
7 – Paralysis
8 – Vomiting
9 – Sicknesses such as croup and primary herpetic gingivostomatitis
10 – Death
Although it can be argued that death isn’t a “symptom”, but I thought I would add it to the list since many years ago it was a very common belief that teething caused death because so many deaths occurred around the teething ages. These deaths were likely caused by sicknesses.
Find Out the Real Cause of the Symptom
A study that examined 125 children’s teething symptoms concluded the following:
“We discovered no evidence that teething was associated with any severe, health-threatening conditions. Thus, before attributing any signs or symptoms of a potentially serious illness to teething, physicians and parents must rule out other possible causes. Additional prospective studies may help determine whether occasionally individuals experience signs and symptoms in association with tooth eruption not described in our article.”
If it appears that teething is making your baby sick then you should try to figure out the real cause of the problem.
Do you have a question, comment, or story to share about teething symptoms in your baby? Go ahead and leave a comment in the comments section below. Thanks for reading!