Always lock away child health medicines

Siemens company health insurance: always lock away medication!

08/06/2011

Medicines often exert a strong attraction on children. Many tablets are colorful and look like sweets. Even liquid medicines, such as cough syrup, usually have bright colors and often arouse the interest of the little ones. On the occasion of the Child Safety Day on June 10th, the Siemens Health Insurance SBK will give tips on the child-safe storage of medicines in the home.

Parents should keep medicines in a way that children can not easily access. Although most parents know this, many often act negligently, and every year many cases of drug poisoning occur, some of them fatal. All medicines are therefore best stored in a lockable medicine cabinet, which is at least one and a half meters high and located in a room to which children have no or limited access. The key must not get stuck on the cabinet but must be kept separately.

Medicines with particularly dangerous ingredients, such as strong painkillers or sleeping pills, usually have parental controls. Unfortunately, many children's hands are still able to open such packaging despite the tricky closure. Parents should therefore never rely on the packaging barrier! Especially if a family member is acutely or chronically ill and has to take a remedy regularly, is often missed, tablets, drops or ointments back into the drug cabinet to clear the costs only a few seconds and may save lives.

The packaging also includes the packaging and leaflets of all medications. Should it come to an unwanted ingestion by a child, the doctor can read the ingredients of the drug in the case of poisoning immediately and take the appropriate countermeasures. A possible poisoning can be recognized by symptoms such as headache, abdominal pain or stomach pain, nausea and vomiting, balance disorders, fatigue, apathy or other behavioral problems. In general, keep calm in such a case! It should then immediately contacted a doctor and the regional poison emergency call and its instructions are followed. This also applies if the child shows no signs of poisoning. (Pm)

Image: Gerd Altmann, Pixelio.de