Parents Frequently Overdose Children with Liquid Medicine, Study Reveals
Children Often Overdose on Liquid Medicine
Liquid medicine is a formulation often used for children, but parents may be overdosing their kids through it.
A new study shows that dosing errors often occur when a dosing cup is used to give children their liquid medicine. Scientists found that the frequency and amount of overdosage were enough to cause concern as inaccurate dosing of certain medicines can be harmful to their health.
Liquid Medicine Overdosing in Children is Dangerous
A study published in the journal Pediatrics revealed that parents were four times more likely to overdose their children on liquid medicine when they use dosing cups. Lead study author, Dr. Shonna Yin of New York University School of Medicine explained that the overdosing may be caused by how parents are using the dosage cups.
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"When a parent uses a cup, they have to be careful about how they hold the cup," Dr. Yin said, as reported by Reuters. "If a cup is not held at eye level, it is easy to put too little or too much medicine into the cup."
In their experiment, they tested more than 2,000 parents and found that more than 80 percent of the parents had made at least one mistake in dosing and the rest made one substantial error. They made the participants measure different doses of medications using dosing cups and two types of oral syringes.
The researchers found that oral syringes may be a better measurement tool for liquid medicine than dosing cups. The two types of syringes used in their tests had similar results which were better than those of dosing cups.
Oral Syringes More Accurate than Dosing Cups and Household Spoons
Certain medicines need accurate dosing when given to sick children. Underdosing or overdosing can have certain health consequences which can result to death, especially in antibiotics and other uncommon liquid medicine.
According to Dr. Blair Hammond of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NYC, dosing cups and liquid syringes can be used together to give the correct dosage. He recommended that liquid medicine be poured in a dosing cup and then measured with an oral syringe in order to double check the dose, CBS News reports.
Dosing instruments such as dosing cups and oral syringes are used in order to accurately measure liquid medication. This is because teaspoons and tablespoons cannot accurately measure dosing units and more often than not, underdose or overdose medicine because kitchen utensils have varying sizes and shapes.
