Cold and Cough Medicines: Information for Parents

Each year, about 7,000 children ages 11 and younger go to hospital emergency rooms after taking cold and cough medicines, about two-thirds of them ingested without a parent or caregiver nearby, according to a recent CDC study. Children between the ages of 2 and 5 are most often affected. Unfortunately, past studies have also uncovered a number of deaths in very young children who were inadvertently given too much of the medicines.

Safety concerns about cold and cough medications for young children prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this month to recommend that parents forgo using these types of drugs in children less than age 2. The manufacturers have voluntarily withdrawn the drugs specifically meant for the youngest children, which should help further reduce the number of children negatively affected by these medicines. Meanwhile, the FDA is currently assessing whether the drugs are safe for use in children older than age 2.

During the most recent study, most of the children who went to the emergency room didn't need to be admitted to the hospital. But many needed treatments to prevent further absorption of the medications into their bodies.

Parents can help prevent these types of events and protect their children by taking the following advice:

• Don't leave medicines where your child might be able to reach them.

• Don't tell children that medicine is candy.

• Don't take adult medications in front of your child.

• Don't give children younger than age 2 medicines intended for older children.

• Throw away cold and cough medicines for children less than age 2.

Manufacturing changes to packaging and formulation could also be useful in reducing hospital visits associated with cold and cough medicines, particularly those due to unsupervised ingestion. Some strategies to make the medications more difficult to access and less inviting to children could include bottle-top adapters, child-resistant single-dose packaging, and the removal of unneeded color additives.

For More Information

• Tips to Prevent Poisonings, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
• Public Health Advisory: Nonprescription Cough and Cold Medicine Use in Children, US Food and Drug Administration
• Schaefer MK, Shehab N, Cohen AL, Budnitz DS. Adverse Events Attributable to Cough and Cold Medications in Children.* Pediatrics. Epub 28 Jan 2008. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2007-3638. ( 7 pages, 253 KB)

*Links to non-federal organizations are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the federal government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.