In children 5 and younger in the U.S. there has been a 36 percent increase in hospital admissions, and a 28 percent increase in emergency room visits for accidental ingestion of prescription medication for adults. The majority of these increases is due to children finding the medicine and taking it on their own as opposed to bad judgement on doses. The best explanation for these increases would likely be the rise in the number of medication prescribed to adults who have children in their household. The most common drug found in the system of young children at these hospital visits are prescription opioid painkillers.
How scary is this!? For accidents like this to be happening more and more over the years signifies that our adult population is getting lazy with keeping hazardous items out of childrens' reach. You would think that adults would be smart enough to keep prescription medication in a secure location whether its locked in a cabinet or hidden way up high to where it is impossible for these small children to reach. Also the only reason there is a "rise in the number of medication prescribed to adults" is because they have a "pill" for everything these days, and I believe that a lot of these medications are way to easy for adults to get. I have heard of people going in and complaining about symptoms that they don't really have and walking out of the doctors office with two or more prescriptions. Its ridiculous, I think that doctors should run better tests on patients to ensure the reality of the diagnosis. As for those adults who actually need these medications, just keep them in much safer places, because in my opinion it is way more important to have these out of children's hands and mouths than it is for them to be easily reached by adults.
I agree, doctors have become prescription happy so to speak. Everything is more about making money these days than the quality of treatment. It's insane that these children have access to these drugs in the first place, perhaps the parents use of these drugs is a factor in the increase but is not an excuse, ultimately it is the parent's responsibility to ensure the safety of their children.
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