Disturbing new research by Dr. William T. Basco, Jr., director of the division of general pediatrics at the Medical University of South Carolina, and colleagues finds that about 4 percent of kids up to the age of three were given an overdose of a narcotic-containing drug.
“Almost one in ten of the youngest infants, ages zero to two months, received more than twice the dose that they should have received based on their age, gender and a conservative estimate of their weight,” Dr. Basco said in a news release from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
In a study presented Saturday at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in Denver, researchers reviewed more than 50,000 prescriptions of 19 different narcotic drugs given to children enrolled in Medicaid from 2000 to 2006 and found that, among children younger than two months, about four in ten received an overdose. On average, this equated to a dose about 42 percent larger than it should have been.
ACSH's Dr. Josh Bloom adds, “While it may sound odd to give narcotics to babies, the prevention of opiate withdrawal — which can lead to seizures and even death in neonates in cases where the mother is an addict — may account for a significant fraction of these babies. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the estimated number of drug-exposed infants born each year in the U.S. ranges from 100,000 to 375,000.”
Dr. Basco offers some other indications for which such young infants are prescribed potent narcotics: “The reasons...include postoperative or posttraumatic pain or for cough due to respiratory illnesses. In fact, the majority of narcotic-containing preparations we valuated were cough and cold medications containing hydrocodone. The drugs are indicated for this purpose, so we do not mean to imply that the drugs are being used improperly.”
Perhaps the most common cause of overdose stems from the difficulties parents have measuring doses of liquid medications accurately. Therefore, it’s important that providers and dispensing pharmacies adhere to more accurate narcotic prescribing, says Dr. Basco.