Families take medicines and vitamins to feel well or stay well. Any medicine or vitamin can be dangerous if taken in the wrong way or by the wrong person, even medicine you buy without a prescription (known as over-the-counter medicines).
Up & Away | Put your Medicines Up and Away and Out of Sight of Children is an educational program to remind families about the importance of safe medicine storage. It is an initiative of PROTECT, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Consumer Healthcare Products Association Educational Foundation and other organizations.
Toddlers can be harmed if they get into medicines when no adult is watching.
Approximately 50,000 children younger than 5 years old go to emergency
departments each year for an adverse drug event.
Emergency visits for kids and pets, too, are preventable if people put medicines up and away after every use.
Here are some safe medicine storage practices:
● Put medicine and vitamins up and away and out of children’s reach and sight.
● Put medicine and vitamins away every time
● At home or away, keep medicines in their original, child-resistant containers.
● Never leave loose pills or liquid medicine out on a counter, table, or child’s bedside.
● Lock the safety cap
● Teach your children about medicine safety
● Ask guests to keep purses, bags, or coats that have medicine in them out of children’s reach and sight when they are in your home.
● Create an Emergency Action Plan that includes important contact information, such as phone numbers for your physician, pharmacist, veterinarian, and the Poison Control Center: 800-222-1222.(4)