Study: Unsecured medications lead to spike in child poison cases

Medical experts are warning parents that unsecured medications are becoming a bigger problems in households across the country.

According to newly released medical studies, nearly 52,000 kids under the age of 6 were treated at emergency rooms across the country as recently as 2017.

That averages out to 142 kids per day and one child every 10 minutes.

Opioid or pain medication is being considered especially dangerous by medical experts as it can suppress a child’s respiratory drive and lead to loss of life.

In some instances, the issue comes from multi-generational families living in the same house with more meds being left out unsecured.

“Because you have elderly patients living with these young children and as we know some of these patients can be taking a lot of medicines,” Dr. Marco Diaz from Del Sol Medical Center said. “I would really encourage them to keep their medicines in a separate bag, maybe on that can have a little lock on it as opposed to having the medicines in their purse or in an easily accessibly backpack.”

Recent studies on this topic have yield some troubling numbers as nearly 52,000 kids under the age of 6 were treated at emergency rooms across the country in 2017 alone, which averages out to 142 kids per day and one child every 10 minutes.

“Sometimes some of the medications can take an hour or two before the effects kick in so the child might be normal for about two hours and all of a sudden he becomes altered and becomes different,” Diaz said.

Many of these cases include kids mistaking multi-colored pills for pieces of candy and eating them with the bigger issue being that those medications aren’t being properly locked up in the first place.