Traveling With Your Children – Safety Tips That Parents Should Know
Apr 8, 2010 Medicine
Traveling should be fun and exciting but if you will travel with your kids, the trip could bring you a lot of stress. With careful planning, traveling with your children will be easier. You also have to anticipate any problem that could arise during the trip that concerns your children’s safety to make the trip enjoyable and hassle-free. Here are some tips for a safe travel with your children. Let your children participate in planning the travel or vacation. Traveling with your children in places unfamiliar to them could bring stress and fear to you kids. Help them anticipate the changes in environment and activities by including them in the planing stage of the trip or vacation. It will also help them welcome the new place if you will bring familiar toys and other things that will make your kids feel comfortable. Inspect your hotel or accommodation room. Hotels in the place of your destination may not be as safe as hotels in your homeland, it is best to inspect the room for faulty or exposed electrical wiring, unsafe stairway or balcony railings, poisonous substances in the bathroom and other things that may hurt your children. Bring a traveler’s health kit. This will also serve as your first aid kit to help you take care of minor health problems while traveling with your children. Your health kit may contain medications prescribed by your doctor if you or your children are under medications. Medicines should be in their original bottles and bring a copy of your physician’s prescription letter or note. Example of medicines to bring are antimalarial medications, antidiarrheal medicines, antihistamine, anti-motion sickness medication, medicines for fever, mild laxative, cough suppressant/expectorant, antacid and antifungal/antibacterial ointments. You also need to bring insect repellent with 50% DEET, sunscreens or sun blocks, alcohol-based hand gel, digital thermometer, baby wipes and the address and phone numbers of the area hospital in your destination. Your traveler’s health kit is a very helpful kit while traveling with your children. Advise your children to be careful with food and water. Children are prone to diarrhea and other food and water related illnesses while traveling. Before traveling with your children, you should educate them to be careful with the food and water in your destination. You should only use purified water. Advise your children to wash their hands as often as possible with soap and water or use alcohol based hand sanitizers especially before eating. Get the most out of your travel. Make sure that this travel will be a memorable and happy trip for you and your kids. In traveling with your children, the biggest expenses are the airline tickets. Plan a head of time and as much as possible find the best deals and family vacation packages to save for your airfare. Do you want to find out how to get dirt cheap airline tickets?
Tags: Children, know, parents, Safety, Should, Tips, Traveling
Cough Medicines and Children
Apr 1, 2010 Medicine
Starting in 2007, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began a campaign against the use of cough medicines for children. In February of 2009, they issued FDA Patient Safety News: Show #83 entitled ‘New Labels for Non-prescription Cough and Cold Medicines.’ They advise parents not to administer medicine to children that is labeled for adults. The directive contains other warnings for parents such as the importance of reading and understanding the label that gives the dosage and time for administering it. All of these actions were prompted by the fact that children have become ill as a result of improper dosage.
The FDA is also concerned about the use of cough medicines by children without parental knowledge or consent. Some over the counter cough suppressants contain dextromethorphan or DXM. While DXM is safe when taken in the recommended fifteen to thirty milligram dose, when taken in large quantities as abusers do, it can result in a quick buzz. But it is also dangerous with many side effects such as impaired judgment, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, irregular heartbeat, seizures, and brain damage.
These medications do not cure a cold they merely relieve the symptoms. They don’t even reduce the amount of time the child is ill.
Prescription medications are always accompanied by a fact sheet from the pharmacist stating directions for using, and noting any possible side effects. Plus the pharmacist will usually explain all of this information to the person picking up the prescription.
While over the counter medications contain the same information, consumers are not as likely to read it. And this is important when administering medication to a child. The parent should at least read and understand the basics such as how much to administer this, when to give it and how often it can be given. Parents should also pay attention to whether it should be given before eating, after eating, with food, with water or without. It is important to read about side effects so that you can recognize them if they should occur.
Parents are also advised to keep a written log stating the medicine or medicines being administered, the amount of each dose and the time it was given. If it becomes necessary to take the child to a doctor or to a hospital, the log should be taken along for the doctor to see. When medicating children there are some crucial do’s and don’ts. Don’t give medicine to a child under four years of age without a doctor’s permission. Don’t give or allow anyone else to give aspirin to a child under eighteen years of age. Aspirin can trigger Reyes Syndrome, a serious condition that can result in seizures, brain damage and death. Do be sure to educate children on the importance of this. Don’t give adult medications to children. Medicine affects children’s systems differently than adults. All headache, fever, and cold medicines are available in products formulated especially for children. Don’t administer both prescription and over-the-counter remedies without your doctor’s knowledge. And finally, clean out your medicine cabinet and get rid of anything past the expiry date.