Think before you dose that sniffling kid

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Some children’s cough and cold medicines don’t do much to improve symptoms; others can have unexpected, and dangerous, side effects. Parents know this. But when Junior or Juniorette has the sniffles or a cough, Mom and Dad still want to feel as if they’re doing something to help.

And so ... a new study in the journal Pediatrics has found that, in any given week, 10% of U.S. children are being dosed with cough and cold medicines.

Among the findings:

* Decongestants (usually pseudoephedrine) and antihistamines were the most popular ingredients, each given to 6% of children.

* Antitussives, known as cough suppressants to you and me, were the next most popular, with 4% of kids getting these chemicals.

* Then came expectorants (you know, when you really want that nasty stuff out of your little one’s airways) at 1.5%.

Also of note: Multiple-ingredient products were much more likely to be used than single-ingredient products; children ages 2 to 5 were the most likely to be dosed; and overall use of such products declined from 1999 through 2006.

Here’s the full study. Here’s what the Food and Drug Administration has to say about children’s cough and cold medicines (it’s not much of a fan anymore). And here’s a recent, related take from NHSblogdoc in the UK about some of these drugs:

‘Why do we not go the whole hog and remove all children’s cough medicine from the shelves? And then all the adult cough medicine as well. Are they all dangerous? Not at all. They are crap.’

Say the study authors, more circumspectly: Maybe parents need to be educated a bit more about the risks of children’s cough and cold meds.

-- Tami Dennis