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Does anyone have any experiance with the medication Singular and children?
I have a child who has recently started taking this as a preventative for severe environmental allergies. I've been reading up on it and it has some fairly sever side effects including, night terrors/ nightmares, behavioural issues and suicide thoughts.
Wow! That is kind of scary! Are you having to dispense any of it to the child or did the parents just alert you to the fact that the child is on it?
I'd be really leary of having to give any kind of meds to a child. I don't keep Tylenol and or Advil or anything on hand and have it in my handbook that I will not give kids ANY meds. I just don't want the responsibility and/or liability.
If you are dispensing, I would make sure you have the parents written permission.
I don't know that is a tough situation.
I have all those rules in my handbook but I have never actually encountered the situation where a parent needed me to give meds to their child. Or have a child on any kind of medication like that.
Ooooh, sorry you have to deal with this a&b. We who are really good at our jobs as caregivers are always worried about the children. And that's a good thing. But the parents make the final decisions. I will medicate a child from a doctor prescribed medication but not any over the counter meds. So if a parent gave me a bottle of meds from the doctor I would have to administer it as instructed. It might be completely against my beliefs and make me worry terribly about the well being of the child but I would have to do it.
I think I would ask the parent to sign and date on a special note on my emergency medical forms where I indicate any ongoing meds the child is on which is meant to be handed to the paramedics if I ever had to call 911. My medical forms are meant to absolve me from anything in that case and put the burden on the parents to take over at the hospital.
I do not give the meds. But I like to know what meds the children are on in case of an emergency I know what's already in their system.
So, I did some research and have found some pretty severe side effects. Just wondering if anyone has come accross this.
Any drug has side effects that are sometimes different in different people. Most of what you read about a drug are a worst case scenerio and meant to absolve the drug company from liability. In reality the liklihood of most of those side effects happening are very rare.
If the doctor prescribed the medication then I would trust their judgement while at the same time being skeptical and for the first week or so watch the child a lot closer than normal for anything out of character.
Sometimes when nothing else works to bring the child relief it is necessary to resort to some less than ideal drugs.
At least now maybe the child won't be a walking dripping tap at daycare if the meds can help to dry up some of the discharge.
I disagree that if a parent gave you prescription meds that you would HAVE to dispense. I choose not to. We are business owners and we make our rules and policies. If a child in my care needed prescription meds I would require the parent to dose the child before or after daycare hours. If the meds needed to be dispensed during the day, I would require the parent to come dose themselves or send someone they trust to do so. I would NOT.Quote:
Originally Posted by Momof4
The first year I was open a baby in my care was put on some pretty heavy duty meds that had the possibility of some really sever side effects much like OP listed above. I didn't have to dispense any of it since the baby was only required to have meds in the morning and again at bed time. A few weeks into being on the meds, the mom came to me devestated. The pharmacy mis-read the doctor's prescription and gave them the wrong instructions.
The baby was suppose to be getting .065 ml of this drug but the label read 5 ml. HUGE difference. So these poor parents were seriously over medicating their child and due to NO fault of their own. They followed the dosing label on the bottle. Even medical professionals make mistakes. Because of that I refuse to take part in any medication of a child in my care.
I know we have forms and signatures that supposedly relieve us of all liability but in all honesty, we probably all know someone who has been sued or held liable despite any wrong doing on their part. We hear way too many stories of providers being drug through the mud, to be found not guilty or completely innocent but still lose their reputation and/or business.
Much too scary ground to be traveling on IMHO.
For 3 years I had a child with asthma and she needed a dose from her puffer morning and night and I carried it with us wherever we went but never had to use it thank goodness. I had a little girl in care with a nut/peanut allergy and had to carry an epipen everywhere but never had to use it thank goodness. I've had children in care with ear infections and I dosed them with their prescribed penicillan mid-day. I have all ongoing meds listed on my emergency forms in case I ever had to give them to paramedics in the case of an emergency.
I'm not the parent of these children so my daycare rules and policies are enforced with safety in mind at all times but I don't feel I have a right to preach to the parents about their decisions on how to raise their child. I do have a clause in my policies that states that I will call CAS if abuse is suspected and overmedicating a child for no reason would fall into that category, but not responsible medicating. Not any two of us raise our children with the exact same methods or opinions so we have to respect that the parents make the final decisions.