Many household products used everyday - medicines, cleansers and iron supplements - can prove deadly if left within the reach of young children. Annually, more than 1.2 million unintentional poisonings among children age five and under are reported to U.S. poison control centers.

It is entirely up to parents and caregivers to make the environment as safe as possible for a young child's exploration. Some medicines do look surprisingly like candy, and a young child may be mistaken.

For example, iron supplement tablets look amazingly like M&M candies. Sudafed tablets look like red-hot candies. Rolaids wrapping looks like many life-savers candy wrappers. Clorets breath freshening gum comes in a package very similar to Feen-a-Mint, a medication dispensed in gum form. Another classic example is Ex-Lax (laxative) that comes in a chocolate form like a Hershey's Chocolate bar.

Here are a few tips for parents and caregivers to keep children safe from unintentional poisonings:

• keep all potentially dangerous products locked up and out of reach of children
• when using mediations or household chemicals, always keep them in your sight; take them with you -- even if only to answer the telephone buy and use child resistant-packaging
• store poisonous substances in their original container discard outdated and old medications by flushing them down the toilet; children can find them in the waste basket
• keep a light on when taking and giving medications so you can see exactly what you're doing
• refer to medicine as "medicine," never as "candy"
• keep activated charcoal (a bottle of 10-15 grams) on hand only to be used on the advice of a doctor or a poison control center (syrup of ipecac is no longer recommended)
• post the Poison Control number by your telephone in case you need it - 1-800-222-1222.

For more information, please call Safe Kids Mid-South, headquartered at Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center, at (901) 287-6730.
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