Related Audio Courses: Caring For Your Baby From Birth To Age One, Caring For Your Toddler , Ages One To Four
Blog Author: Dr. Dennis Kuo
Another article came out in Pediatrics this month on the dangers of cough and cold medicines, this one about the number of children (estimated 7000) who are brought to emergency rooms in the United States every year for an adverse event to a cough or cold medicine. What is particularly interesting is that the authors found young children who ended up in the emergency room tended to have taken cough/cold medicine unsupervised, but older children who ended up in the emergency room (admittedly fewer overall) tended to have taken the medicine supervised and in a correct dose. (I’ve seen both scenarios myself.)
While it’s probably true that the vast majority of children who take these medications have no significant side effect, this is the first study I have seen which takes a look at the overall burden of serious side effects and the reasons for them happening. The study also looked at ER visits only, which means that this study is an underestimate of children who had an actual reaction (e.g. poison control center info was not part of the study). At the very least, the study results should give all of us pause, that medications available over-the-counter need to be approached with respect and that these cough/cold medicines really aren’t all that benign.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/peds.2007-3638v3 