The body's numbers
Normal pulse, breathing, temperature and blood pressure; the signs that mean danger in a child; and how much water a body needs.
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Knowing what is normal is how you notice what is not. These are the basic numbers every carer should know, and how to take them with nothing but a watch and a thermometer. They describe healthy adults at rest unless a row says otherwise. Medical content on this site has not yet been reviewed by a qualified practitioner (CIV-054).
Vital signs in a healthy adult at rest
Take them with the person sitting quietly for five minutes. One reading means little; a change between readings means a lot, so write each one down with the time.
| Measure | Normal | How to take it |
|---|---|---|
| Pulse | 60–100 beats a minute | Two fingertips on the thumb side of the inner wrist; count for 30 seconds and double |
| Breathing | 12–18 breaths a minute | Watch the chest rise without telling the person you are counting; count a full minute |
| Temperature | 36.5–37.3 °C | Under the tongue with a thermometer. 38.0 °C or more is a fever; below 35 °C is hypothermia |
| Blood pressure | Between 90/60 and 120/80 mmHg | Needs a cuff and gauge; the top number is the pressure as the heart beats, the bottom as it rests |
Fast breathing in a child is a danger sign
Pneumonia is one of the biggest killers of children under five, and fast breathing is how it is spotted without any equipment. Count for a full minute while the child is calm. WHO counts a child as breathing fast at:
| Age | Fast breathing |
|---|---|
| Under 2 months | 60 breaths a minute or more |
| 2–12 months | 50 or more |
| 1–5 years | 40 or more |
What a body needs
- Water: about 2.0 litres a day for a woman and 2.5 for a man, counting the water in food (EFSA), and much more in heat or hard work. Dark urine, or very little of it, means too little.
- Food: see preventing deficiency disease for energy and the nutrients that run short first.
- Blood: an adult has about 70 ml per kilogram of body weight, roughly 5 litres. Bleeding that soaks through dressings is an emergency: see the first-aid guide.
Where to go next
This page covers what you are most likely to meet. It is not a field guide, and on identification that difference can kill you. These are the works that go further — chosen because they can be held offline.
Still to come
Illustrations carry a technique further than prose, but some things only move well. Recorded here rather than left implicit.
- Normal pulse and breathing ranges by age for children, from a paediatric source