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Medicines and laundry pods: up, locked, and 13 11 26

Where to keep medicines and pods, what "child-resistant" really means, and what to do in the first minutes.

About 2,100 children a year are hospitalised for accidental poisoning, and more than half of them (1,185) are aged 1–4. The poison is often something already in the house. Paracetamol tops the NSW Poisons Information Centre's list of substances, so medicines are the first thing to lock away: an adult's tablets, a grandparent's pill organiser, iron tablets. Then cleaning products, laundry and dishwasher pods, button batteries, essential oils and garden chemicals.

Save this number now

Poisons Information Centre: 13 11 26. Free, 24 hours, anywhere in Australia.

Australia's Poisons Information Centres take about 200,000 calls a year, and toddlers aged 1–4 are 36% of the exposures (2015, the latest national report). Put the number in your phone and on the fridge. If a child collapses, can't breathe or is fitting, call 000 instead.

Where things go

  1. Up high and locked. Up high alone fails once a child can climb a chair.
  2. In the original container, so you know what it is and how much was there.
  3. Put medicine away straight after each dose, not on the bench for later.
  4. Handbags, nappy bags and visitors' bags go up high too. Many poisonings start with pills from a guest's bag.
  5. Laundry and dishwasher pods: closed container, locked cupboard. They burst in the mouth and look like lollies.

Child-resistant is not child-proof

Child-resistant caps slow a child down. Plenty of four-year-olds open them, and a cap left loose stops nothing. Close it until it clicks, every time.

If you think they swallowed something

  1. Take it out of their mouth and keep the container.
  2. Call 13 11 26 before anything else. Have the label, the child's age and weight, and the time it happened ready.
  3. Don't make them vomit, and don't give them anything to drink unless the Poisons line tells you to.
  4. Do what the Poisons line says. Often it's "watch at home"; sometimes it's "go to emergency now".

Never call medicine "lollies". It teaches a child to go looking for them.

Sources