The Top 10 Medication Mistakes Parents Make
Check Your Doses
Matthew, my one-year-old, gets a different antibiotic every few weeks totreat his chronic ear infections, and the dose is usually a teaspoonful. So itwasn't until I'd given him a few doses of his most recent antibiotic that Ihappened to check the label and realized I'd been giving him a quarter of ateaspoon too much. In this case the extra amount caused more intense sideeffects — gas and diarrhea. But with pain relievers a few extra doses overseveral weeks could lead to possible liver or kidney damage. Check all labelscarefully.
Keep tabs on expiration dates, too, especially with drugs that your childtakes only once in a while. "A mother called me recently to tell me thatthe drug her child takes occasionally for painful heartburn wasn'tworking," recalls Marilyn Bull, M.D., F.A.A.P., director of developmentalpediatrics at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. "The problem wasthat the drug has a shelf life of only thirty days, and the mother hadn'tremembered to refill the prescription."
What to Look For
Anyone who has tried to give medication to a fidgety child knows thatsometimes both adult and child can end up wearing a lot of it. But enough mayhave entered the youngster's system, and giving another full dose could bedangerous. The same applies to children who vomit within an hour of downingmedicine. In both cases, it's best to call your pediatrician, who can adviseyou on whether — depending on the drug — it's okay to give another dose.
Follow Through
Your child is feeling better, but you've still got a half bottle ofantibiotic left. Your instinct may be to shelve it. After all, you wonder, whyspend money on more if you need it a few months later? But, says Laura Prager,M.D., F.A.A.P., a pediatrician with Kaiser Permanente in Redwood City,California, most prescriptions, especially antibiotics, are meant to be used infull. If you don't give your child the entire dose, the illness couldrecur.