Child Care Warning: Hot Cars, Hyperthermia, and the Death of a Child

The unspeakably tragic death of a child can only be amplified when it was easily preventable with a little knowledge on the part of the child's caregiver. Now that the summer heat is settling down on us for a few months, it's time to thrust warnings about child hyperthermia death out into public child care forums.

For clarification: there are several afflictions categorized as hyperthermia. If you've heard of any one, it was probably malignant hyperthermia, the most common; malignant hyperthermia is a hereditary condition which causes high body temperatures and muscle rigidity in response to certain anesthetics. This is wholly unrelated to the topic at hand. The hyperthermia death discussed herein occurs when a child (generally an infant or toddler) is left unattended in a hot car and overheats beyond his or her body's ability to withstand it.

Well over 300 infants and toddlers have died from hyperthermia in a hot car in the past decade in the U.S. alone. The number may not strike us as staggering, but take a minute to consider each individual, entirely preventable death of a child. It should also be noted that this statistic of course only reflects documented cases. On top of that, in the same timeframe, also domestically, there have been thousands of near-deaths involving children who were found in time to receive appropriate medical treatment. It adds up to gruesome child care failure. A definitive bulk of child hyperthermia deaths happen during the summer months, but not all.

Based on interviews of those providing the child care (parents, older siblings, other relatives, nannies, family friends, etc. have all been guilty), just under half of the children who die from vehicular hyperthermia are left behind because they're forgotten; the rest, a slight majority, are deliberately left in the automobile by a caregiver who doesn't realize they are endangering the child.

It's debatable which is scarier--the stupidity or the ignorance, both of which are terrifying when it comes to child care--but while the former is hopeless, the latter can sometimes be remedied with information.

The only rule, of course, is to never leave a child unattended in a vehicle for any amount of time. Summer or not, heat or no heat, hot car, cold car, temperate car...most would consider this rule a no-brainer. Apparently, though, it does require repeating.

The best warning for anyone who provides child care in any capacity is probably a quick look at the relevant facts:

The threat of the death of a child from hyperthermia in a hot car is much greater than people presume. First, consider that a young child's body has yet to develop the ability to regulate its temperature to any significant extent. An infant or toddler's body heats up to five times faster than an adult's. Heatstroke sets in at 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius), while 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.6 degrees Celsius) is fatal.

It does not need to be notably hot outside, either, for the possibility of hyperthermia death to be present. A few cases have been documented when outdoor temperatures were only in the upper 60's, many more with temperatures in the low 70's. Summer heat presents the greatest, but not the only danger.

Everyone's gotten into a ragingly hot car that's been parked for some time in the sun. What they don't always realize is just how quickly the inside of the vehicle got that hot. An automobile's color, and particularly the interior color, does have a bearing on the rate at which the vehicle heats up. However, all vehicles will heat up, and quickly. On average, the temperature in an automobile under direct sunlight on a typical summer day will rise 20 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius) in just ten minutes, and as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) in an hour.

One final warning--tests have found that cracking the car windows does little or nothing to slow the interior's climb in temperature.

When all the factors are in place, the death of a child from hyperthermia can be measured in minutes--not hours. So again, never leave a child in your care unattended in a vehicle for any amount of time. If you see a child who's been left alone in a car, call for emergency assistance immediately. Just the time you spend looking around for a parent and wondering whether you should meddle can be fatal.