Core and local skin temperature: 3-24 months old toddlers and comparison to adults

The thermoregulatory responses, thermal sensation and comfort level of children are very different to those of the adult population, and should be considered in the modelling of thermal comfort and the use of climate control systems in children-shared spaces. In addition, thermoregulation is believed to be related with Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, a major cause of death in children aged below 1 year.However experimental core and skin temperature data of the infant population is very limited, especially in toddlers. The present work investigates and reports the body core and local skin temperature characteristics of young children, as well as their dependency on gender, BMI, age, activity level and clothing. This study's novel features are:. i) clothed subjects were used and the gender representation was balanced;. ii) all subjects are children aged 3-24 months -not previously reported in the literature;. iii) it is comprehensive in terms of both infant subjects (N = 138) and total measurements (over 9000); and. iv) it compares the characteristic body and skin temperature in adult and infant population. We observed for instance that children's core temperature is higher than for adults, while their forehead and limbs' temperature increase with age. Also, core and skin temperature seem to become more dependent on BMI with age maturation.