Childhood Drug Poisonings Increase

More young children now visit U.S. emergency rooms for drug poisonings than for car crashes. This is mostly due to an increase in the number of children who find and swallow prescription drugs at home.

The most dangerous prescription medicines for children are:

• pills to treat diabetes;

• opioids (narcotic) pain relievers;

• drugs to treat anxiety, muscle spasms, and sleep problems;

• drugs to treat heart disease and high blood pressure.

Why are dangerous childhood poisonings increasing? More and more adults are taking more and more prescription medicines. This is especially true for opioid pain relievers – drugs like oxycodone, hydromorphone, morphine, methadone, and fentanyl. Older children also are taking more medicines – to treat attention deficit disorders and, increasingly, to treat Type 2 diabetes.  If more medicines are present in young children’s homes, there are more chances for them to find and swallow them.

It can be very difficult for parents and caregivers to keep every medicine locked up all the time. Some medicines must be taken frequently. Travel also complicates safe storage.  Even the most diligent parent can be interrupted while taking medicines. To help decrease childhood poisoning, researchers propose that medicine packaging limit the amount of drug available at one time. For example, children can’t open many child resistant blister packs at once. Liquid medicines could also be dispensed in containers that permit only one dose at a time to be released.

For now, poison prevention measures are more important than ever:

• Use child-resistant packaging. Replace caps tightly after use.

• Lock all medicines up high, out of sight and reach of children.

• Take medicines when children aren’t looking, because children will imitate adults taking medicines.

• Be sure that all family members and visitors are vigilant about locking up their medicines.

• Take special care when traveling to be sure that medicines are locked away from children.

If you think a child may have swallowed too much medicine or someone else’s medicine, call the poison center right away! The 24-hour number is 1-800-222-1222. Do NOT wait to see if the child becomes ill – by then it may be too late to prevent a tragedy.

References
Bond GR, Woodward RW, Ho M. The Growing Impact of Pediatric Pharmaceutical Poisoning. J Pediatr. 2011: in press. Accessed Dec 5, 2011. http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0022-3476/PIIS0022347611007712.pdf