Here is a concerning little story: The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has completed a two year study (2004-2005) that showed that unintentional overdoses were the third leading cause of non-fatal injuries among infants treated in hospital emergency department. For children aged 1 to 4 years, it was the sixth leading cause.

The study estimates that 158,520 patients aged 18 years and younger visited emergency departments for adverse reactions to prescription and non-prescription medications, vaccines, vitamins, dietary supplements, and complementary and alternative therapies during that two year period.

The important part to note was that children from 1 to 4 years old were nearly 10 times more likely than children of other ages to be hospitalised for adverse drug effects. Almost half (45 %) of the hospitalisations were unintentional overdoses, mostly from pain relief and respiratory medications.

It is just so important to remember that our baby’s body does not yet have the tolerances to foreign influences that you and I do. We’re all used to grabbing Aspirin or Paracetamol tablet when we have a headache, but we tend to forget that the dosage is made for a 80kg+ Adult, and not a 5-15kg child. Simply splitting a tablet is just not safe as the medication may not be perfectly evenly dispersed in the tablet. And really, who of us can successfully split a table into 4 or more chunks ? Even then, that quarter chunk is still enough for a 20kg person…

If you do need to give your child medication, please make sure you use the children’s version of the product if it is available, or switch to one.