The job of keeping poisons away from children ultimately falls to the parent. Here are some tried and proven guidelines that will help you succeed in that task:

General poison prevention guidelines:

1. Try to avoid the tendency to scatter cleaning chemicals all around the house. It may be convenient to have a bottle of comet in all the bathrooms under the sink, but the more places you keep chemicals, the more likely they are to be left in an area where children have access to them.

2. Pick one closet on each level of the house to use as a storage place for dangerous items. You are less likely to leave stuff out when there is a locked storage place on every floor. Secure it with either a safety latch at the top of the door, or install a locking door and keep the key high up on a nail. You can even print out the classic skull and crossbones symbol of poison and affix it to the door at child’s eye level, so that kids (particularly older kids) know where the dangerous things are supposed to be.

3. Keep chemicals with you while in use. Don’t set them down on a counter or leave them in another room. Like drowning, it only takes a second for kids to endanger themselves.

4. Affix the number for poison control to all your phones. The national toll-free number is 1-800-222-1222. Be sure to program it into your cell phones as well.

5. Watch out for grandma! As many as 20% of child medication poisonings occur through exposure to a grandparent’s medication. These drugs are frequently quite strong, and also tend to be easily accessible, since grandparents aren’t used to childproofing to keep stuff away from kids. Monitor closely when visiting grandma and grandpa, and also watch medication that may be brought into your home through purses and handbags.

6. Never store food and cleaning supplies or other chemicals together, since a leak could poison the food.

7. Call poison control at the number above to ask about any poisonous plants you might have in or around the house. It is not solely an emergency number; you are free to call with questions about potential poisons.

8. Store cleaning products in their original containers, so that children do not confuse them with something else. Don’t store chemicals in recycled juice bottles or milk jugs.

9. Never mix household cleaning products. The fumes can become deadly when mixing otherwise harmless chemicals.

10. As ridiculous as this may sound, keep children fed and watered. Hungry and thirsty children are more prone to put something in their mouth, or to improvise when nothing else is made available. I’ve heard of a child draining a bottle of bleach water because she was thirsty.

Keeping medications out of reach of children

1. Keep all medication, including vitamins and skin ointments, in a locked cabinet. You can buy an inexpensive cabinet or window lock that is childproof and easy to attach to what you currently have. Simply putting bottles on a high shelf doesn’t guarantee safety, especially since children often climb on sinks or cabinets.

2. Never refer to medicine as “candy” in front of children.

3. Avoid easy-open pill container tops or day-of-the-week pill organizers, which are especially dangerous to children. Always keep medications in childproof pill containers, even when on the road. Also, it’s best to keep pills in their original childproof containers, so that if your child does manage to ingest something, you can identify what she swallowed to poison control.

4. Take precautions to properly dispose of medications.

Preventing medication overdoses in children

Nearly 5,700 children end up in the emergency room each year because a caregiver accidentally gives an overdose of over-the-counter medication. Help prevent this with the following guidelines:

1. Use only exact measurements when administering medication, and read the instructions twice while double-checking your dose, ensuring that what is on the label matches the measurement tool you are using. Don’t “guestimate” or use inaccurate kitchen utensils to measure out medicine. Many poisonings occur when a parent mistakes a teaspoon for a tablespoon or uses a kitchen spoon to

1. measure out dosage. This is easier to do than you might think. Many products do not come with dispensers, and one study found either confusing instructions or conflicting markings on 99% of the products tested. For example, some labels listed the doses in teaspoons, yet for some inexplicable reason, the measuring cups were pre-marked in tablespoons.

2. DO NOT use over-the-counter children’s cough or cold medicine products, period. These have been shown to be ineffective (they only make a child drowsy without really alleviating symptoms). But worse yet, these products have killed many dozens of kids over the years, SOMETIMES EVEN WHEN ADMINISTERED PROPERLY BY PARENTS.

3. Do not self-medicate your child or mix medications. Do not use over-the-counter products as sleeping aids or as a means to regulate your child’s behavior. Many parents have pushed the limit just a little too far, inducing a seizure or even death.

Child Poisoning Prevention Tips for Parents

The job of keeping poisons away from children ultimately falls to the parent. Here are some tried and proven guidelines that will help you succeed in that task:

General poison prevention guidelines:

1. Try to avoid the tendency to scatter cleaning chemicals all around the house. It may be convenient to have a bottle of comet in all the bathrooms under the sink, but the more places you keep chemicals, the more likely they are to be left in an area where children have access to them.

2. Pick one closet on each level of the house to use as a storage place for dangerous items. You are less likely to leave stuff out when there is a locked storage place on every floor. Secure it with either a safety latch at the top of the door, or install a locking door and keep the key high up on a nail. You can even print out the classic skull and crossbones symbol of poison and affix it to the door at child’s eye level, so that kids (particularly older kids) know where the dangerous things are supposed to be.

3. Keep chemicals with you while in use. Don’t set them down on a counter or leave them in another room. Like drowning, it only takes a second for kids to endanger themselves.

4. Affix the number for poison control to all your phones. The national toll-free number is 1-800-222-1222. Be sure to program it into your cell phones as well.

5. Watch out for grandma! As many as 20% of child medication poisonings occur through exposure to a grandparent’s medication. These drugs are frequently quite strong, and also tend to be easily accessible, since grandparents aren’t used to childproofing to keep stuff away from kids. Monitor closely when visiting grandma and grandpa, and also watch medication that may be brought into your home through purses and handbags.

6. Never store food and cleaning supplies or other chemicals together, since a leak could poison the food.

7. Call poison control at the number above to ask about any poisonous plants you might have in or around the house. It is not solely an emergency number; you are free to call with questions about potential poisons.

8. Store cleaning products in their original containers, so that children do not confuse them with something else. Don’t store chemicals in recycled juice bottles or milk jugs.

9. Never mix household cleaning products. The fumes can become deadly when mixing otherwise harmless chemicals.

10. As ridiculous as this may sound, keep children fed and watered. Hungry and thirsty children are more prone to put something in their mouth, or to improvise when nothing else is made available. I’ve heard of a child draining a bottle of bleach water because she was thirsty.