Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Symptoms
By Mayo Clinic staffMany children have no symptoms of high blood pressure, although some children with high blood pressure may have signs and symptoms such as:
- Chest pain
- Fatigue
- Difficulty concentrating
- Headaches
- Difficulty sleeping
In severe cases, your child might have signs and symptoms such as blurred vision, shortness of breath or confusion.
When to see a doctor
Unless your child has an underlying health problem or has the emergency symptoms listed above, you probably don't need to make a special visit to your child's doctor to have your child's blood pressure checked. However, your child's blood pressure should be checked yearly as part of a routine doctor's appointment, starting when your child is age 3.
If your child has a condition that can increase the risk of high blood pressure — including premature birth, low birth weight, congenital heart disease, and certain urinary or kidney problems — blood pressure checks may begin during infancy.
If you're concerned about your child having risk factors for high blood pressure, such as being overweight or obese, talk to your child's doctor. He or she may recommend more frequent blood pressure checks.
Blood pressure should also be checked at least once during a course of treatment for any acute illness. If your child has pneumonia, for example, and has two or three visits to the doctor, his or her blood pressure should be checked at least once.
