As children acquire new skills, they expose themselves to new dangers. By six months of age, most infants can reach out and grasp objects. The risk of accidental poisoning, as well as of choking, increases daily and persists throughout the toddler and early childhood years.

Children can ingest a variety of potentially toxic substances. These include both over-the-counter and prescription medications, household cleaning products, pesticides, plants, gasoline and kerosene, and paints and solvents, among many others.

When a parent discovers that his or her child has ingested a potentially dangerous substance, the parent’s natural reaction is to want the child to vomit it out, but this may not always be wise.

This is due to a combination of factors, the most important of which is the introduction of child-resistant containers and safer medications, as well as increasing public awareness of the dangers of poisoning.

Prevention :

Medications

• Keep all medications, including vitamins, out of sight and out of reach. Store them high up and in a locked closet.
• Always secure child-resistant caps in the locked position after use.
• Never transfer a medication from its original container to another one.
• Dispose of all unused or no-longer-needed medicines safely.
• Never refer to medications as candy.

Household Products

• Store potentially dangerous products in locked cabinets, preferably high up. Be particularly careful with bleach, drain cleaners, and similar extremely toxic materials.

• Never transfer these substances from their original containers to other ones.

In the Garage, Basement, or Garden Shed

• Store gasoline, kerosene, paint thinners, and varnishes in secure containers, locked up and out of reach.

• Never pour these substances into cups, soda bottles, or other containers. Even you may forget what that soda bottle contains!

• Store pesticides and fertilizers safely.

When Visiting

Children are often poisoned in someone else’s home, so be especially vigilant when visiting relatives and friends. Grandmother’s sleeping pills or blood pressure medicine may look particularly colorful and appealing to young children. People who are not accustomed to having young children around may not be quite as careful about keeping potentially toxic substances in a safe place.

Treatment

Note: Keep the poison center phone number close to the telephone

Don’t panic!

• Take the substance away from your child. If there is still some poison in your child’s mouth, get her to spit it out or remove it with your fi ngers.

• Look for any obvious, immediate effects such as burns of the lips, redness around the mouth, or drooling.

• Contact the poison control center.

• Do not induce vomiting until you have discussed this with the poison control center.

• Watch out for side effects such as drowsiness, retching, stomach cramps, and behavior changes.

Call 911 if your child becomes excessively drowsy or unconscious or has

breathing difficulties, jerking movements, or seizures. If our child does become unconscious or has a seizure before medical help can be reached, position your child on his side with his head lower than the rest of his body so that should he vomit, he will not inhale what he threw up. Be alert for breathing difficulties.

• Take the poison, medicine container, or plant with you to the emergency room. If your child has vomited and you do not know what he ingested, take the vomited material with you to the hospital.

CAUTION

— the ingested substance is gasoline, kerosene, or similar volatile  material;

— the victim is very drowsy or unconscious