Prevent Accidental Medication Overdoses in Kids — Keep Your Medicines up and Away
As a parent or caregiver, you may wish you could be everywhere at once — but we all know that’s impossible. When kids get into something they’re not supposed to, like medicines, vitamins, or supplements, there’s a good chance you’ll be in another room or distracted and unable to stop them. That’s why it’s so important to keep medicines out of the sight and reach of young children — and to put medicines away right after you use them, every time.
Protect your child. Here’s how:
✔Put medicines and vitamins up and away – out of reach and out of sight
Children are curious and put all sorts of things in their mouths. Even if you turn your back for less than a minute, they can quickly get into things that could hurt them.
Pick a storage place in your home that your child cannot reach or see. Different families will have different places. Walk around your house and decide on the safest place to keep your medicines and vitamins.
✔Put medicines and vitamins away every time
This includes medicines and vitamins you use every day. Never leave them out on a kitchen counter or at a sick child’s bedside, even if you have to give the medicine again in a few hours.
✔Hear the click to make sure the safety cap is locked
Always relock the cap on a medicine bottle. If the bottle has a locking cap that turns, twist it until you hear the click. Remember, even though many medicines have safety caps, children may be able to open them. Every medicine and vitamin must be stored up and away and out of children’s reach and sight.
✔Teach your children about medicine safety
Teach your children what medicine is and why you must be the one to give it to them. Never tell children medicine is candy to get them to take it, even if your child doesn’t like to take his or her medicine.
✔Tell your guests about medicine safety
Ask houseguests and visitors to keep purses, bags, or coats that have medicine in them up and away and out of sight when they are in your home.
✔Be prepared in case of an emergency
Call your poison control center at 800.222.1222 right away if you think your child might have gotten into a medicine or vitamin.
Program the Poison Control number into your home and cell phones so you will have it when you need it.
For more ways to learn how to keep medicines somewhere safe visit: UpAndAway.org.
More Safety Articles
Can prescription warnings reduce "drugged" driving?
Some prescription medicines can impair a person’s ability to drive. The 4 most common classes of medicines that cause impaired driving include: antidepressants, stimulants, sedatives, and opioids (narcotics). These medicines can make the driver sleepy, impair thinking, limit motor function, and/or make the driver more aggressive.
The “Granny Syndrome”: Accidental Poisonings in Children
Most people recognize that accidental poisonings in children are a daily occurrence in the US. But you may be surprised to learn one common source of these poisonings: grandparents’ medications! A scientific study conducted at the Long Island Poison Center1 found that about two of every 10 medicine poisonings in children involved grandparents’ medications. Most of these poisonings, caused by what the study participants called the “Granny Syndrome,” involved grandparents’ medicines that had been left on a table or countertop, on low shelves, or in grandmothers’ purses.
In February, the Chicago Sun Times reported that 16 elementary school children had been taken to local hospitals with a sudden illness. The children were 9- and 10-year olds who began vomiting after eating “mints” given to them by another classmate. It was later found that these “mints” were actually nicotine -replacement lozenges, called NiQuitin Minis ( Figure 1 on page 3). ( NiQuitin is a product from the United Kingdom that is sold online; however, the Nicorette brand made in the US has a similar product.) The classmate found the lozenges at home and brought them to school to share.
