Hypothermia is treated by preventing further heat being lost and by gently warming the patient. You should seek immediate medical attention if you suspect severe hypothermia, as it can be life-threatening.
Treating hypothermia home
If you're treating someone with mild hypothermia at home, or waiting for medical treatment to arrive, the following advice will help to prevent further heat loss.
- Move the person indoors or somewhere warm as soon as possible.
- Once the person is in a warm environment, carefully remove any wet clothing and dry the person.
- Wrap them in blankets, towels, coats (whatever you have available), protecting their head and torso first.
- Your own body heat can help someone with hypothermia. Gently hugging them can help to warm them up.
- Encourage the person to shiver if they're capable of doing so.
- If possible, give the person warm drinks (not alcohol) or high energy foods, such as chocolate, to help warm them up. However, it's important to only do this if they can swallow normally (ask them to give a cough to see if they can swallow).
- Once the person’s body temperature has increased, keep them warm and dry.
It's important to handle anyone with hypothermia very gently and carefully.
Things to avoid
There are certain things that you should not do when treating hypothermia because it may make the condition worse. You should not:
- put the cold person into a hot bath to warm them up – this will cause the blood vessels in the arms and legs to dilate (open up) too quickly and cause a fall in blood pressure to the vital organs such as the brain, heart, lungs and kidneys, possibly leading to cardiac arrest and death.
- give the person alcohol to drink because it will also cause the blood vessels in the arms, legs and throughout the surface of the skin to dilate too quickly
When to seek medical help
If someone you know has been exposed to the cold and they're distressed or confused, and they have slow, shallow breathing or they're unconscious, they may have severe hypothermia. Their skin may look healthy but feel cold. Babies may also be limp, unusually quiet and refuse to feed.
Cases of severe hypothermia require urgent medical treatment in hospital. You should call 999 to request an ambulance if you suspect that someone you know has severe hypothermia.
As the body temperature drops, shivering will stop completely. The heart rate will slow and a person will gradually lose consciousness. They won't appear to have a pulse or be breathing. If possible, cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR) should be given while the person is being warmed. CPR is an emergency procedure that involves giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and chest compressions.
In some circumstances, advanced medical treatment can be used to temporarily withdraw blood from the body, warm it and then re-infuse it to warm the person. These techniques are only available in major hospitals that have specialist emergency services on site.
A person with severe hypothermia often stands a better chance of surviving if they're taken directly by the emergency services to one of these hospitals, even if it means bypassing a smaller hospital along the way.
