Tips for Taking Temperature for Fever

Video Transcript

"DR. SUSAN JEWELL: Hello. My name is Dr. Susan Jewell, and on behalf of Expert Village today, I'm going to talk to you about how to treat fevers. Now in this clip, I'm going to show you different areas where you can actually take the body's temperature reading and using the thermometer. Now, the most common place that most people actually use the thermometer to take the body's temperature is in the mouth. Now, when you're using that method, it's important that you place the silver part of the first third of the thermometer into the mouth, into the pouches of the lower part of the inner mouth, that's the cavity area, because that's where you can actually take a very accurate body core temperature. And when you actually put the thermometer into the mouth, you should leave it in the mouth for at least three minutes, so that the mercury can move up into--give time for the mercury to rise into the thermometer, or if you're using a digital thermometer, it also gives a more accurate reading. And then, when you put the thermometer in your mouth, you gotta place it and keep it still in that one location, and don't move the thermometer around in the mouth because that's going to change the reading and give you an inaccurate body temperature reading. Now, the other locations where you can take body temperature is the armpit. Now, the armpits and the rectal area, the rectum, actually will give you more precise body temperature reading, and specifically, the rectal is actually one of the more, sort of more frequent used location for infants and newborns to take their temperature 'cause we don't want to insert things into their mouth 'cause they tend to--they won't know and they'll bite it down, plus they're be very upset and anxious at the time when they have fevers or when they're ill. So, like the three--it's the mouth, the armpit, and the rectal areas are the important areas where you can take a really accurate body temperature."