Help Your Kids Stay Safe This Summer — Keep All Medicines Up and Away
Published June 21, 2023 (revised June 24, 2024)
Kids can get sick if they swallow medicines, vitamins, or other supplements they’re not supposed to – including those that come in gummy form. Help your kids stay healthy this summer by keeping your medicines in a safe place — whether you’re at home or on the go.
Consider these tips to store medicines safely:
With hectic summer schedules, it’s easy to forget about everyday tasks. Don’t forget to put medicines, vitamins, and other supplements away right after you give or take them, every time.
Keep medicines in a place kids can’t see or reach — like in a high cabinet or on a high closet shelf.
Planning a family vacation? Be sure to pack your medicines in child-resistant containers. If you’re staying in a hotel, you can put medicines in the hotel room safe or on a high shelf in the closet.
Be sure to keep your vitamins and other supplements —including those in gummy form —up and away and out of sight and reach too!
If you think your child may have swallowed a medicine, vitamin, or other supplement, get help right away — even if you’re not sure. Call Poison Help at 800-222-1222 or go to PoisonHelp.org.
More Safety Articles
One Nostril or Two?
Some medicines come as a nasal spray. While a spray in each nostril is the typical way to take a single dose, there are some exceptions. Some medicines are meant to be given as a single spray into one nostril for each dose. One prime example is calcitonin salmon (Fortical or Micalcin), a medicine used to treat women with osteoporosis (bone thinning) after menopause.
Who would ever make that mistake? Well, people do. A father told the babysitter to put his son's ear drops in his right ear before bed, and the careful babysitter did just that. She found ear drops labeled "put two drops in right ear" in the medicine cabinet, and instilled the ear drops into the child's right ear. But the family's dog also had a bottle of ear drops, which were the drops the babysitter used. The son's ear drops were in the refrigerator. Luckily, the child was not harmed by the dog's ear drops.