Medications are the leading cause of child poisoning

Medications are the leading cause of child poisoning in New Zealand

The document “Child Poisoning Prevention”, launched by Safekids Aotearoa, identifies in Ministry of Health data that a total of 2499 children aged between 0-14 years were hospitalised due to a poisoning-related injury in New Zealand between 2006 and 2013. Children under 5 years of age accounted for 82.5% of all hospitalisations. The majority of poisoning events happened in a home environment (81%) with boys. Seventy-two percent of the poison related admissions were due to medications.

Ann Weaver, Director of Safekids Aotearoa, says “children under 5 years old are naturally inquisitive, and learning by exploring their environment is an important part of a child’s development. Children 0 to 14 years are too young to differentiate between safe and unsafe products. Children rely on adults to ensure their safety and wellbeing.”

Safekids Aotearoa will use the position paper to advocate for child resistant packaging, free access to child resistant caps on medications and as an education strategy. Highlights from the document have been published in infographic format to create awareness about the mistakes people can make identifying the difference cleaning products and medications. The infographic shows how easy it is for children to confuse medicines with food. It presents figures on causes and routes to exposure and lists the top ten substances as reported to the National Poisons Centre.

The acronym "SAFE" is introduced to convey the safety messages:
STORE all medicines, chemicals and cleaners in their original container and lock them in cupboards up high and out of sight.
ASK your pharmacist for safety caps on medicines - there may be a small cost.
FOLLOW the dose instructions from your doctor or pharmacist when giving medicine to children.

ENSURE you read and follow safety instructions on medicines, chemicals and cleaners.

Remember: Contact the National Poison Centre 0800 POISON or 0800764766 if you suspect your child has swallowed a poison.

The position paper and the infographic are available as free downloads on the website www.safekids.nz.

Safekids Aotearoa is the national child injury prevention service, and a service of Starship Children's Health and is funded by the Minister of Health. It has worked since the 1990’s to raise public awareness of child injury issues and provide evidence-based information to parents and caregivers, planners, decision makers and the injury prevention workforce to improve child safety.

ENDS

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