No fear of bumps on the head
Today once again something from the very important category: reassuring parents. It is not uncommon for them to call us worried because they have noticed a lump on the back of their child's neck or head. And this often causes great anxiety.
I won't keep you in suspense for long. The solution is as simple as it is reassuring. There are many lymph vessels in the neck and the back of the head. And especially in young children up to school age or even up to secondary school, it can happen very quickly that a lymph node swells and becomes thick and is easy to feel.
Don't worry: the whole thing is almost always relatively harmless. There is a rule: enlarged lymph nodes above the collarbone are harmless in children. It is important that the child is well, does not have a constant fever or weight loss or appears weak. If the child is well, a swollen lymph node is not an emergency and should not lead to a sleepless night for you, dear parents, out of sheer concern for your child's health.
A colleague friend of mine once put it in a nutshell: "Lymph nodes come quickly and go very slowly." This means that even a mild infection can quickly cause a lymph node to swell - and then stay there for ages without it having any pathological significance.
Nevertheless, as always, if you are unsure, you are welcome to show us the lump and we can discuss it in more detail. It's just important to me that you don't worry and think it's an emergency if you discover a small lump somewhere in your otherwise healthy child's neck or at the back of the head.
Further interesting tips
Fever app
"You give me fever" - even the King sang about fever, so it's more than justified for us to dedicate ourselves to this topic for the second time. Because there is something cool and new.
Sleep / Sleep training
The "good old" sleep training method, known as the Ferber method, regularly causes controversy - like so many issues surrounding sleep in babies and young children. What bothers the doctor the most? The fact that people hardly talk about it because they are so divided into different camps.
Monkeypox
Ever since monkeypox became a topic in the media, parents have been asking whether it is also relevant for humans here and whether there is cause for concern, especially for children of course. Reason enough for us to take a look at the topic.