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SafeRX offers prescription safety tips for families
In honor of this week, SafeRx Lake County, a local opioid safety coalition, offers some best practices on keeping children safe when it comes to prescribed medications, how to store them and the safest way to travel with your prescribed medications.
Approximately 60,000 young children are brought to the emergency department each year because they got into medicines that were left within their reach.
SafeRx Lake County urges all families to ask themselves if all of the medicines in their home are stored safely.
Medications and vitamins can help families to feel and stay well. However, if taken incorrectly they can be very harmful. It is important to keep medicines safely out of the reach and sight of curious children.
Below are some tips from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to safely store all medications:
• Store medicines in a safe location that is too high for young children to reach or see.
• Never leave medicines or vitamins out on the kitchen counter or at a sick child’s bedside, even if you have to give them the medicine again in a few hours.
• Always relock the safety cap on a medicine bottle. If it has a locking cap that turns, twist it until you hear the “click” or until you can’t twist anymore.
• Tell children what medicine is and why you must be the one to give it to them.
• Never tell children medicine is candy so they’ll take it, even if your child doesn’t like to take his/her medicine.
• Remind babysitters, houseguests and visitors to keep purses, bags, or coats that have medicines in them up and away and out of sight when they’re in your home.
Learn more about SafeRx Lake County at www.saferxlakecounty.org.