Infant Cold Medications
The cold season has hit my pediatric office and our house as well! I’ve been fighting a virus for the last couple of days and now it looks like my 17 month old has it too. This morning, he’s been wandering around with his little pjs on and dragging his blankie. I would normally give him something for the cold but things have changed a little since he was born.Last year when I wrote about infants and colds I recommended infant drops to help with the stuffiness. Well, I take that back! Yesterday The New York Times reported that infant cold medications have been pulled from the market. The Consumer Healthcare Products Association issued a press release yesterday 10/11/07 listing the infant medications that have been voluntarily removed by their manufacturers. They are as follows:
Concentrated Infants’ Tylenol Drops Plus Cold
Concentrated Infants’ Tylenol Drops Plus Cold & Cough
Pediacare Infant Drops Decongestant (PSE)
Pediacare Infant Drops Decongestant & Cough (PSE)
Pediacare Infant Dropper Decongestant (PE)
Pediacare Infant Dropper Long-Acting Cough
Pediacare Infant Dropper Decongestant & Cough (PE)
Manufactured by Novartis:
Triaminic Infant & Toddler Thin Strips Decongestant
Triaminic Infant & Toddler Thin Strips Decongestant Plus Cough
Manufactured by the Medtech Products unit of Prestige Brands Holdings:
Little Colds Decongestant Plus Cough
Little Colds Multi-Symptom Cold Formula
Manufactured by Wyeth:
Dimetapp Decongestant Infant Drops
Dimetapp Decongestant Plus Cough Infant Drops
Robitussin Infant Cough DM Drops
The Consumer Healthcare Products Association states: “Potential misuse of these infant medicines, not product safety, is driving the voluntary withdrawal. This withdrawal does not affect cough and cold medicines for children age 2 and older”.
This isn’t too surprising. In January 2007 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released their Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In it they “identified three cases of infant deaths in two states during 2005 that were determined by a medical examiner or coroner to have been caused by cough and cold medications” Since this time there has been increasing concern over the safety of over the counter cold medications for infants. It’s not unusual for parents to inadvertently overdose their infant by giving them multiple preparations all containing the same medication.
This move by the manufacturers is a good one for now. Until we know more about the safety of over the counter cold medication in infants, then we should opt for more benign treatments such as a warm bath, nasal saline, a humidifier, and tender TLC.
Sheila Cason, MD
Labels: health
2 Comments:
Hi, Sheila. I'm a primary care doc, and I enjoyed reading your comment regarding cold medicines on the NYT blog. I only disagree with you in one place. You said, "I don’t mind seeing extra patients in my office and will certainly answer questions over the phone. Any good pediatrician should tell you the same." Unfortunately, I think you're the exception rather than the rule! It's extremely difficult to get an appointment with providers in my community.
radrayer@yahoo.com
Dr. Drayer,
You don't mention which primary care field are you in? Peds, Family Practice or Internal medicine but I know pediatrics,in particular, needs to have same day sick appointments available. Kids just can't wait three or 4 days to be seen. I think we as providers need to be more to be flexible around the sick season. Or the practice needs to hire extra help during the busy season. I think most offices are doing the best they can. When I was practicing in my busy San diego office I was known to come in early, stay during lunch. We saw less well child visits and many more same day and walk in appointments. If a parent called and wanted to be seen, they were seen.
When we really ran out of appointments we had to get pretty good at finding out who could wait and who really needed to come in. I had to educate parents more and talk to them over the phone to see if they could provide at home care or if I needed to examine them. We tried not to burden the ER and urgent care. But sometimes we had no choice. There is no perfect system.
Having said all that I worked hard and got burned out fast. I found it hard to balance a busy clinic, hospital rounds and three young children. This is why I now practice part time.
I want to ressure parents that even though they can't give their infant cold medications, it doesn't mean they are left without options. Their child's physician will go over alternative care and help them through the sick season.
Sheila Cason, MD
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