Yes, it is medicine but it can still hurt!

Medications generally provide much needed relief of symptoms for your children, a cure for most ailments and when our children are well we can all sleep better at night. However, there are inherent dangers in medications which apply to both over the counter (OTC) and prescription drugs if used inappropriately. Every medication has desired effects but also side effects that may result in serious illness and even death, especially if used incorrectly. Before giving medication we should ask ourselves the questions our children always ask us: who, what, when and how?

Medications prescribed for adults should not be given to your children. Parents make the assumption that their child can get a half or a quarter of the dose that they take for a particular condition.

A few points need to be borne in mind:

Medication dosing by weight is the mainstay of paediatric prescriptions.

Medications come in different concentrations. The half of a tablet that is given to an adult may far exceed the amount that a child can tolerate. For example, an adult tablet of paracetamol is about seven times the strength of a children’s paracetamol tablet. A child who would require only one paracetamol tablet would get three times that dose if given half of the adult tablet.

Children’s bodies process and react to drugs differently from adults and many medications have not been fully tested in children.

Read more at:

http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091019/news/news6.html

Did you have knowledge of this before? Have you ever had any bad experiences with medicine as a child? Have you ever witnessesed any unusual situations caused by misuse of medicine? Have you found the information useful?

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