Avoid Cold Medicine for Children Under 4

Labels in cough and cold medicines will soon contain warnings they are not to be given to children under 4 years of age. This was announced by the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a trade group of over-the-counter medicine manufacturers.

Medications bearing the new warning labels will be introduced immediately in pharmacies and stores. The labels will also carry warnings against using antihistamines to put youngsters to sleep.

But products with the old labels will not be pulled out and will continue to be sold.

More than 7,000 children are treated in hospital emergency rooms each year, largely due to adverse reactions on taking cough and cold medicines. The overwhelming majority of the reactions are caused by accidental overdose, and the children often suffer dizziness, hives, and difficulty breathing.

The decision to change the labels was made voluntarily by the drug manufacturers.

The Food and Drug Administration supported the move, but it did not act on a recommendation by its own advisory panel and a group of pediatricians to make cough and cold products unavailable for children younger than 6 years.

In fact, some doctors want broader restrictions on these products. The medications should not be sold over-the-counter to anyone less than 12 years old, according to some pediatricians.

The FDA, however, has yet to resolve two conflicting concerns: although many experts say the medications are not safe for young children, there is also a distinct possibility that uninformed parents may administer adult-strength medicine to their children if pediatric medications are banned.

Cough and cold medications for children are used in 39 percent of U.S. households. Sales of over $300 million on 95 million packages are recorded each year. There are nearly 800 versions of the product, and each one uses at least one of 39 different drugs.

About two-thirds of the emergency cases resulted from unsupervised taking of the medications, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Young children are able to obtain cold medicine bottles from unlocked medicine cabinets without their parents knowing it.

But there have also been accidental overdoses caused by parents. They could have been confused about proper doses for children or they gave two products — hoping the cold would get better sooner but not realizing the medications probably contained the same ingredients.

Doctors emphasize no one has yet discovered a cure for the common cold. No medicine, no matter how popular, can cure it.

Safety Tips:

* Never give medicine for adults to young children. Avoid giving cold and cough medicine to children younger than 4.

* Avoid using antihistamine products to make children sleepy. These can worsen the breathing problems arising from cough and colds.

* Give your child plenty of fluids. Honey may be used for coughs in kids aged 1 or older.

* Keep all medications out of sight and out of reach from children.

* Ease congestion with a humidifier or saline nasal drops.