Resources for Your Family
Ensuring medication safety for our families, especially children, is paramount. Every year, nearly 60,000 young children visit emergency departments due to drug ingestions — that’s about four busloads per day.
Despite widespread awareness, there’s a concerning gap between parental understanding and action. While most parents agree on storing medicines out of reach and in their original containers, many still fall short in practice.
over the counter poisoning cases the child climbed on a chair, toy or other device to reach medicine.
accidental medicine poisonings involving young children, the medicine wasn’t in its usual or “normal” storage location and was therefore accessible.
%
of poisonings involved child-resistant packaging.
Medication Safety Tips Checklist
- Keep all medications (prescriptions, OTC, Vitamins, and Supplements) out of sight and reach, especially from children.
- Maintain medicines in their original packaging, designed to be child-resistant.
- Begin practicing safe medication storage habits as soon as your child is born.
- Place reminders in frequently visited areas of your home to help you remember to take or administer medication doses.
- Integrate medication routines into your daily activities, such as linking them with brushing your teeth.
- Follow a consistent medication schedule to ensure proper dosing at the appropriate times.
- Save the Poison Control hotline number 1-800-222-1222 in your phone and prominently display it at home for quick access during emergencies.