HOLD UP Before Giving Your Child Cold Medicine

My one year old daughter caught her first cold within the past week or so.  It wasn’t a really bad cold, but she experienced many of the classic symptoms, including coughing, runny nose, and congestion.

One thing that many folks asked us is…

“What kind of medicine are you giving her?”

I personally am not quick to take medicine myself.  I never have been.  You could ask my mom and she’d tell you how my brother and I would often tough out headaches instead of taking Advil, or how we would always read the packets that came with prescription meds before taking them…as young folks.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not totally “anti-medicine”…I just try not to take medicine unless I really need to.

To answer the question, we weren’t giving her any medicine, and she’s recovering fine.  Part of the reason that we weren’t giving medicine is because, as I said earlier, my wife and I try not to jump the gun with medication unless the situation truly warrants it.  The other reason is because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recommends against it!

Why The FDA Recommends Against Giving Cold Meds to Infants

Check it out.  The FDA recommends against giving cold medication to any kids under 2 years of age.  Why?  The reason is because the medicines could have “serious and potentially life-threatening side effects” on that age group.  That’s important to know, isn’t it?

To go a bit further, the FDA says that older kids can take over-the-counter medications to relieve symptoms, but the medications will do absolutely nothing to make the colds actually go away faster.  Next time you go in your medicine cabinet, look at some of your cold medicine and you’ll likely see something like “symptom reliever” on the label.  That medicine isn’t curing anything…it’s only masking the symptoms.

Oh, and remember also that antibiotics will not help with colds.  Colds are caused by viruses, and antibiotics fight bacteria, not viruses.

In other words, the best thing you can do is to let your God-given immune system fight the cold virus off, and to support your immune system by drinking plenty of fluids, getting a lot of rest and eating lots of immune boosters such as onions and garlic.

Back to cold medicine for kids.  It is so, SO important for you and I to really understand what we’re putting in our kids’ bodies.  Not only could we be unnecessarily be putting chemicals in their bodies, but worse, we could be endangering their lives!  Everyone who asked what kind of medication we were giving our baby was well meaning.  Of course they were.  They wanted my daughter to feel better, and I truly appreciate it.

However, if we decided after that to give her cold medicine, according to the FDA it would have been a risk to her well-being, so I’m thankful that we let the cold run its course.  What we ended up doing is giving her a natural saline nasal spray (shown in the picture) with no unnatural stuff in it, and we also put a humidifier in her room to moisten the air to make it more comfortable for her to breathe.

Two Concluding Thoughts

I want to present a couple of thoughts as “take homes” for this post:

1. Medicine has its place – I do not believe that all medicine is bad.  I believe that there are times where medicine helps a lot, such as when my daughter was running a high fever and we gave her some kids Tylenol.
2. Medicine is NOT always the answer – We took our daughter to her pediatrician, and he told us that he could prescribe her some medication if we wanted.  When we declined, he said that was totally fine, and went on to say that many parents are looking for some sort of prescription, even when it isn’t necessary.  Point:  Sometimes we just need to let our bodies do what they were made to do.

Your thoughts?