Changes in Labeling Have Reduced Toddler Trips to the ER
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iStock/Thinkstock(ATLANTA) — Fewer toddlers are winding up in hospital emergency rooms due to accidental overdoses of cough syrup geared for children.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that manufacturers took action in 2007 to re-label their products with warnings that their medicines were only for children 4 years old and over.
As a result, the number of ER visits involving toddlers and infants mistakenly given cough syrup and other over-the-counter products has fallen dramatically during the past six years.
But even as drug makers do their part, Skyler Kalady, a pediatrician at Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital, says parents also have to be more vigilant.
Kalady told ABC News, “We want all medications and all cleaning supplies stored high and locked, so a toddler could never get into them in a brief, unsupervised period of time.”
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