Giving Medicine to Children

Dr. Parang Mehta, MD.

There has to be a reason.

For every medicine given to a child, a strong, logical reason ought to be present. All medicines have to potential to cause side effects, sometimes serious ones. No one should receive drugs without reason, least of all children.

Reasons for Medicines

Specific Treatment: Medicine to cure an illness. For example, antibiotics for pneumonia, or deworming agents for worm infestations. These are essential medicines, and the child will not get well withiut them. They must be given at the prescribed dose and interval for a definete number of days.

Symptomatic Treatment: These are the supportive drugs for a disease. They do not cure the illness, but help in making the child comfortable. For example, antipyretics like paracetamol/acetaminophen for a child with pneumonia. Does not cure the disease, but reduces the fever. Such medicines are not absolutely essential, but do help.

Nutrition supplements: like iron, calcium, and vitamins. They are usually prescribed to children who have a nutritional deficiency or are likely to have one. Though they have a purpose, not every dose is important, and a few can be skipped, if the child is receiving other medicines for illness.

Difficult Patients

It can be a difficult situation -- the child is sick and miserable, and you have to force unpleasant medicines down her throat. Some children take medicines easily, some make life difficult. Either way, if the medicine is for a significant cause, it must be given.

It is best if the child takes the dose on her own. Force feeding often causes vomiting, and part of the dose is thrown up. A variety of ways are useful to get medicine into a child:

Sweet talking her into taking it -- really the best way. All it needs is patience and some imagination.
Mixing it with something sweet -- syrup, honey, sugar. This often works with children, but some medicines are so bitter, nothing masks the taste.
Mixing it with food and drink. Some medicines are tasteless, or nearly so. These can be added to food or juice, without the child knowing. However, never put unpleasant medicine in food -- the child may develop an aversion for that food item.
Making a game of it -- again, patience and imagination are the key.
Involve her in the preparation. If a child is allowed to add water to a dry syrup and do the shaking, she's often keen to then drink the medicine she's "made herself".
Force it down. Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Last revision: September 16, 2011

When to Give Medicine

When your pediatrician prescribes some. If a pediatrician or other health care professional decides that a child needs medication, it's best to either go along, or get a qualified second opinion. Many diseases seem mild at first, and flare up dangerously if not treated on time.
Sometimes, you can decide yourself. If your 5 year old child has a fever with a running nose, and is not looking too ill, you can start some fever medicine.
When the child is in pain, or has a blocked nose, or wheezing, or has some other recurring problem for which your pediatrician has prescribed medication on "as-needed" basis.

There isn't a drugstore cure for everything. Some problems have to be waited out, some endured. Some symptoms are not treated by your pesiatrician. A child with a cough and cold may be given only an antibiotic, for example. When the infection is cured, the cough and cold will subside.

With children, lesser is safer. The less medicines they take, the better. Usually.

Contact Information

Dr. Parang Mehta,
Mehta Childcare,
Opposite Putli, Sagrampura,
Surat. Tel: +91 98241 53923.
Email:

Caring for Childhood

Giving Medicine to Children

Reasons for Medicines

Difficult Patients

When to Give Medicine

Contact Information

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