Parents warned over giving cough medicine to babies

PARENTS should not give their sniffling babies cough and cold medicines without appropriate advice from a doctor or pharmacist, the State’s drug body warned last night.

The Irish Medicines Board was responding to a public health warning from the US Food and Drug Administration that parents should not give over-the-counter cough and cold medicines to children under the age of two.

The FDA warning, issued yesterday, is in response to concern that the medicines can cause serious and potentially life-threatening side effects.

It said babies and toddlers are ending up in emergency rooms in the US because of the side effects from the drugs.

The IMB said it was aware of the FDA notice and would not recommend the use of cough and cold medicine in children under the age of two without appropriate advice from a doctor or pharmacist.

The FDA has not yet decided if decongestants, antihistamines and cough suppressants are appropriate for older children.

A leading Irish pharmacist said it was unreasonable to give cough and cold medicines to young children in the absence of proven clinical benefit.

Dr Martin Henman of Trinity College Dublin said some of the over-the-counter medicines were being misused by some parents to help their child go to sleep.

“Pharmacists have not found that any of the other health service or medicines bodies have acknowledged there could be a problem and no support for the pharmacists’ position has been forthcoming,” he said.

He said the type of misuse of the medicines was hard to evaluate and, as the US experience showed, might only come to light after a tragic event is publicised and other cases are then investigated.

In a recent article published in the Irish Pharmacy Journal, Dr Henman called for an evaluation of the existing regulatory requirements for cough and cold medicines for children under the age of six.

He said a public education campaign about the use of non-prescription cough and cold medicines in young children was needed, not least because the appropriate use of cough and cold medicines in older children and the use of antihistamines in allergic conditions in children could be beneficial.

In the meantime, he said, pharmacists could provide useful advice to those who wanted to hear it.