This year at Matthews Chiropractic Center I’ve become a new parent. As a parent, I am acutely aware of the desire to make our children feel well ASAP. I am also cautious of everything that I give to my child to eat, drink and feel better. Readers to this space will remember an early September 2008 posting recommending alternative methods of relieving cough and cold in children under 2 years old (“Choose the spoonful of sugar, but not the medicine”). In that posting I highlighted the FDA’s recommendation to avoid use of OTC cough and cold remedies for children under 2 year of age.

Recent news recommends avoiding over-the-counter cough and cold remedies for children until 4 years of age. The Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) is an industry group representing the manufacturers and distributors of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines and nutritional supplements. On October 7, 2008, the CHPA announced that leading manufacturers are “voluntarily transitioning the labeling on oral OTC pediatric cough and cold medicines to state “do not use” in children under four years of age.”

If you are still using these remedies in question, please be very careful to follow your pediatrician’s instructions, measure doses correctly, and keep track of when doses are given. To learn about an alternative to OTC cough and cold medications, see the earlier article Choose the spoonful of sugar, but not the medicine.