Your Childrens Health

Next week is an important awareness week for parents of babies and small children – National Poison Prevention Week.  This week, running from 19^th March to 25^th March, aims to give parents the information they need to prevent and treat accidental poisonings in the home.

Nearly 2.4 million people, over half of them under the age of six, are poisoned each year.  Usually the poisoning occurs when a child is unsupervised, and its parents haven’t given enough thought to the potential dangers of common products.  Anything from furniture polish to cleaning products can be classified as a poison if your child touches or swallows it. 

To mark this week, the American Academy of Pediatrics has published a list of tips for parents on how to poison-proof your home:

• Store medicine, cleaners, paints/varnishes and pesticides in their original packaging in locked cabinets or containers, out of sight and reach of children.
• Install a safety latch - that locks when you close the door - on child-accessible cabinets containing harmful products.
• Purchase and keep all medicines in containers with safety caps. Discard unused medication
• Never refer to medicine as “candy” or another appealing name.
• Check the label each time you give a child medicine to ensure proper dosage.
• Never place poisonous products in food or drink containers.
• Keep coal, wood or kerosene stoves in safe working order.
• Maintain working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 17th, 2006 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Medical Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.