Author | Xu Diandian
Can effervescent tablets "kill"?
Recently, Qi Lifeng, deputy chief physician of the Department of Pediatrics at Shenzhen Children's Hospital, shared a case that made many parents sweat:
A child over 2 years old ate an effervescent tablet, and the mother saw it and fed the child a mouthful of water.
Unexpectedly, after only 10 seconds, the child's hands and feet suddenly began to shake, followed by a violent cough and blue mouth. When the child was taken to the hospital, his breathing and heartbeat were already quite weak.
Sadly, after a day of rescue in the hospital, the child still could not be rescued.
Dr. Qi emphasized:
All effervescent tablets cannot be eaten directly in the mouth!
Even if the pill box says "oral", it will not work.
Why can an effervescent film that should be used to save people be able to "kill people"?
This is because swallowing effervescent tablets directly will produce a large amount of carbon dioxide, which quickly occupies the mouth, causing choking cough, and even leading to hypoxia and suffocation in the human body.
The CCTV documentary "Witness - Traces of a Drug Case" also reported a similar tragedy:
In 2014, an 18-month-old baby got the flu and doctors prescribed a box of effervescent tablets.
After returning home, the baby's mother thought that there was no difference between effervescent tablets and ordinary medicines, and did not read the drug instructions carefully, fed an effervescent tablet directly to the child, and fed the child a little warm water, thinking that she could swallow the medicine.
As a result, the unfortunate baby died of suffocation due to lack of oxygen, and the mother regretted it.
The correct way to eat is to soak the effervescent tablets in a water cup, add warm boiled water, and wait until its bubbles are finished before taking.
It was originally a little common sense, but there are many people in life who don't know it.
In short, taking medicine is not a trivial matter, parents are anxious to read the instructions first, according to the correct way of eating.
Children's medication should be more cautious, in addition to eating, but also pay special attention to dosage forms, dosage, a little careless may lead to unpredictable risks.
Hurry up and forward it to your family and friends around you.
Never give your child medicine on their own
There are many families who have such a habit:
Someone in the family has a cold, go to the pharmacy to buy some cold medicine and come back to eat, and in a few days it will be fine.
Let's not say that this method is unreliable, there is one thing that needs to be clearly understood:
Even if adults take the medicine themselves, it is not necessary to put it on the child.
A 7-year-old boy in Guizhou, because of a cold and runny nose, parents did not care too much, thinking that this little illness at home to take some medicine is good. Therefore, the child was given anti-inflammatory drugs and antiviral drugs.
As a result, after a week, the boy's condition not only did not improve, but also worsened, the fever continued to go away, at this time the family was anxious, quickly sent the child to the hospital, but it was too late.
Because anti-inflammatory drugs, infusions and other treatment methods have not worked for this child, in the end, the child is due to organ failure and death.
The doctor said that a small cold, the child originally had the opportunity to be rescued, but because the parents usually at home blindly according to their own "experience", to the child to eat a lot of antibiotic drugs, over time, the germs in the child to develop drug resistance, the original effective drugs are also ineffective for the child.
That's why doctors are helpless.
There are also some parents who will give their children multiple drugs at the same time.
Pengpeng, a 5-year-old boy, usually has an allergic cough and sinusitis, and every time he coughs, his mother will go to the pharmacy to buy medicine for him to eat.
More than 3 months ago, he coughed after a cold and has not gotten better. Mom took him everywhere for medical treatment, this medicine took for a few days, did not see a significant improvement, immediately changed to another hospital for medical treatment, changed other drugs and took a few days. Even, when she heard about the drugs recommended by relatives that were said to be more effective, she bought them for her children to eat.
As a result, the child took the medicine intermittently for 3 months, and the cough was still not good.
The doctor checks the child's liver function and finds that the liver cells have been damaged, which is related to the child's long-term and irregular medication.
Here we should remind parents that they must be cautious when giving medicine to their children and listen to the professional opinions of doctors.
Never give your child medicine on your own initiative!
The child's physical endurance is not the same as that of adults, and the medicines and dosages required are also different. We must not use the irresponsible attitude of "estimation" and "halving" to give children medicine at will.
Once the wrong drug is used, the consequences are far from what we can afford:
Children are twice as likely to develop adverse reactions as adults, and even four times more likely to develop adverse reactions in infants and young children under 1 year of age.
According to incomplete statistics, about 30,000 children in China cause deafness and other adverse reactions due to irrational use of drugs every year.
I believe that no family can bear such a result.
Taking your medication correctly is key
What medicine to drink is also important.
Many parents, in order to coax their children to eat the medicine, will let their children drink with juice and milk.
As everyone knows, this is not advisable, not only will reduce the efficacy of the drug, but sometimes there will be a certain risk.
For example, if you use juice on aspirin, which is a more irritating drug, it is likely to irritate the mucous membrane of the stomach, and even cause bleeding from the gastric mucosa.
The same is true of milk, if you drink milk while taking antidiarrheal drugs, not only the effect is greatly reduced, but also for people with lactose intolerance, it will even aggravate diarrhea.
Good medicine is bitter, and it is completely normal for children to have resistance when drinking medicine. In the face of such a situation, parents should not force their children to take medicine, but should find a suitable method.
For children under 1 year old, parents can use a small dropper to feed when feeding the medicine, a small number of times, and then feed the next bite after the child swallows.
2-3-year-old children, if they are not willing to cooperate with drinking medicine, parents can hold the child to feed, but it should be noted that when holding the child, it is best to use a semi-supine position or a half-sitting position, fix the child's head, and feed slowly in one bite, which will better avoid the child's coughing.
Children over 3 years old, at this time the child has been relatively easy to communicate, it is best to discuss with the child to drink medicine, you can also take some incentives to reduce the child's fear of drinking medicine.
As a parent, really pay attention to the fact that the child's drinking medicine is not a trivial matter, and do not damage the child's health because of a momentary carelessness.
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Author: Diandian Xu, Editor of the Parenting Column, focuses on parenting and child psychology research. Some of the pictures are from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author.