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Your little one is sneezing and congested. You might consider heading to the pharmacy for a remedy to ease their discomfort. Hold on! While fever reducers such as Tylenol are safe for children of all ages, most other medications—particularly those claiming to treat coughs or runny noses—are either unsuitable for young kids or simply ineffective.
First, let’s address the medications that are not advised: The FDA strongly advises against using cold medicines, especially those containing decongestants or antihistamines, for children under four. These drugs can pose serious risks to toddlers. Even if they’re marketed in the children’s section, they’re intended for older kids, not preschoolers. (A quick glance at the label, as you always should, will clearly state they’re not for children under 4.)
In a Slate article, Melinda Wenner-Moyer highlights some particularly dubious products: Alongside these medications on pharmacy shelves, you’ll find cough syrups marketed for kids that are essentially $9 bottles of...water. These are homeopathic "remedies," rooted in an 18th-century theory that diluted toxins or irritants can treat illnesses. While this concept might seem like a starting point for real medicine (as many drugs are derived from toxic substances in controlled doses), homeopathy takes it to extremes, diluting ingredients to the point where the active component is often undetectable in the final product.
If you’re fortunate, that’s all you’ll encounter. However, poor quality control can sometimes lead to dangerous concentrations of the original ingredients. As Wenner-Moyer explains:
One major issue is that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
does not oversee
the safety or effectiveness of homeopathic remedies. This regulatory gap affects both adult and children’s products, but since the kids' section in pharmacies is packed with these items, it’s crucial for parents to realize: No authoritative body is verifying the safety or claims of these products.
Read the full article to dive deeper into the issue and learn how to identify which cough syrups are ineffective.
Image courtesy of the Boston Public Library.
