Medications
Treating a sick child with medication is a two-way responsibility, and it’s a perfect example of how parent and doctor work together in the interests of the child’s health. The doctor is responsible for making an accurate diagnosis of the child’s condition and prescribing the appropriate drug. But it’s the parent’s responsibility to make sure that the drug is administered correctly.
Some doctors estimate that 10 to 30 percent of cases in which medication apparently fails to work occur because the medication didn’t get a chance to work – because it wasn’t given properly. Whenever a doctor prescribes medication for your child, the doctor will also instruct you as to how the medicine should be taken. If you don’t understand, ask. And don’t rely on the scribble on the prescription. Prescriptions are written in a form of medical shorthand that is quite clear to a pharmacist but may not mean a thing to you. So make sure you know, before you leave the doctor’s office or get off the phone, just how to give the child the medication.
How much. The quantity of medication the doctor prescribes for your child depends on the child’s body weight and age. The dosage prescribed for a baby will be much different from that prescribed for an adolescent, even if the drug is the same and given for the same reason. It’s important to give the child the exact amount prescribed, and that means you can’t rely on hit-or-miss measurements. It’s easy enough to give one or two pills, but liquid measures are more tricky. You can’t use a kitchen teaspoon to administer a teaspoon of medication – you could be way off. One tea-spoonful means 5.0 cc (cubic centimeters) of liquid. Half a teaspoonful means 2.5cc – not what looks like half of the teaspoon you use to stir your coffee.
You can buy a specially marked measuring spoon for medication from any pharmacist. Keep it in the medicine chest and be sure to use it any time you’re giving the child liquid medication. If you’ve got a child who insists on taking medication from his or her own special spoon, transfer the medication from the measuring spoon to the child’s spoon after measuring.
Make sure the child takes all the medication. If the child vomits within 20 minutes of receiving medication, you can assume the medication was lost and should give another dose.
When. It’s also important to follow the doctor’s instructions about when medicine should be given. Different medications require longer or shorter periods of time to be absorbed by the body and start doing their work of helping the child get well. Some medications need to be given at very precisely regulated intervals. Make sure you understand the prescription, because “four times a day” and “every six hours” do not mean the same thing.
If the label on the medication tells you to give the medicine four times a day, it means that the child should have four doses within the waking hours at fairly equally spaced intervals.
On the other hand, “every six hours” means exactly what it says. Each dose must be given six hours after the last one, and the child must be awakened at the appropriate time if necessary. This instruction may also appear on the prescription as every six hours “around the clock.”
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