Avoiding Medicine Mishaps With Children

Medications can be essential to helping people stay well and feel well, and they can be life-saving in some situations. Unfortunately, no medicine is completely without risks. From medication misuse to allergic reactions, side effects, and dosing errors, problems related to medication use cause about 1.3 million emergency room visits and 350,000 hospitalizations in America each year.

Young children are especially vulnerable to medication-related problems, particularly unintentional overdoses. Recent statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) show that accidental medication exposures and overdoses send about 50,000 children under the age of 5 to the emergency room each year. Despite these alarming numbers, children can be protected from unintentional medication overdoses by consistently following a few simple safety measures.