SINGAPORE, Oct 19: An accidental discovery that a water-filled mattress can quickly drive down fever in a sick child has changed the way young patients are treated at a Singapore hospital, the facility said on Saturday.

The innovation at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) is being exhibited at the first SingHealth Annual Quality Convention.

Nurses said they noticed the amazing effect the 4.50 dollar mattresses had on feverish children while using them to improve the circulation in youngsters with pressure sores.

The thin, 43 cm x 46 cm mattresses are so effective as a fever- relief tool they have become standard treatment for youngsters running high temperatures, the hospital said.

Widely available at shopping centres, the mattresses are usually used as cushions on car seats.

The conventional method of sponging a feverish child was very stressful because it was time-consuming and a child in intensive care had to be handed with utmost care, said Pang Nguk Lan, deputy director of nursing at KKH.

“You can’t move him too much because his blood pressure may suddenly fall and he could become very unstable,” Pang said.

The hospital conducted a pilot study to test the effectiveness of the water-filled mattresses as a fever-relief tool.

It takes only six minutes to set up the mattresses and 15 to 30 minutes for the fever to come down, according to the results published in The Straits Times.

In contrast, it takes 40 minutes to sponge a child and up to two hours for anti-fever medication to work.—dpa