An increasing amount of children are being accidentally poisoned by prescription drugs, U.S News reported via Healthday.
"We found between 2000 and 2009 [that] rates of pediatric exposure to adult medications were increasing," said researcher Dr. Lindsey Burghardt, from the division of emergency medicine at Boston Children's Hospital who led a study on the subject.
The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.
The team found a correlation between the increasing number of prescriptions being filled for adults and the amount of children who are exposed to them.
The study looked at surveys from the National Poison Data System that were from 2000 to 2009.
"This is the first step, to identify the extent of the problem," Burghardt said. "Despite all these precautions that have been put in place to try to prevent these poisonings in kids the problem persists. In fact, the number of poisonings has been increasing."
Burghardt believes that the next step is to figure out why the number of children exposed to the drugs is increasing.
The study found that those under five are at the greatest risk, Burghardt warned that parents should keep their prescriptions as out of reach as possible.
Sixty percent of young children poisoned by prescription drugs ingested diabetes medications, 59 percent were exposed to blood pressure medication.
According to the study teens who abuse prescriptions are most likely to take narcotic painkillers, either for recreational use or to attempt suicide.
Painkillers and diabetes medications caused the most serious injuries, and the most hospitalizations, the study showed.
Children have also been accidentally ingesting marijuana more frequently, this usually happens when parents or grand-parents leave items such as marijuana laced brownies within the reach of children.
"What we see a lot is open prescription bottles from parents or grandparents, and ingestion of diabetic and other drugs by kids," said Dr. Vincenzo Maniaci, a pediatric emergency medicine doctor at Miami Children's Hospital. "Kids are going to get into everything."
