«Back to January News Bulletin

According to Lawrence Quang, MD, Division of Pediatric Emergency Medicine and director of the Northern Ohio Poison Control Center at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, parents can use a common household item to help young children recover from bad colds.

Try natural solutions, such as honey

The sniffling, sneezing, coughing and runny nose that can go with the common cold are making your child, and you, miserable. In the past, you might have picked up cough and cold medicines to ease the discomfort. But over-the-counter (OTC) decongestants, expectorants, antihistamines and cough suppressants are no longer advised for young children.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says you shouldn’t give these drugs to children younger than 2 years old. They raise the risk for serious side effects: convulsions, fast heart rates, even death. The FDA is weighing the drugs’ safety and effectiveness in children ages 2 -11.

I agree that these medications shouldn’t be used in any children. There’s no evidence that they work, and they can potentially be harmful. If you do give cough and cold medicines to kids ages 2 to 11, follow label directions and learn the product’s active ingredients. And always check with the child’s pediatrician before administering these types of medications.

Try these tips to help ease your child’s symptoms without medication:

• Use a rubber suction bulb to remove mucus from the nose of a child younger than 6 months.
• Use saline drops to help relieve a stuffy nose.
• Place a cold-mist humidifier or vaporizer in your child’s room to moisten the air.

So what else can you do to help your child? A study from Penn State College of Medicine suggests an old folk remedy — honey.

Kids who took buckwheat honey before bed coughed less and had less severe coughs than those who took nothing or who took medicines containing dextromethorphan, the most common cough suppressant found in OTC medicines. And the kids who had honey slept better—which means the parents slept better, too.

Again, be extra careful with the youngsters. Kids younger than 1 year old shouldn’t take honey. It may be tainted with bacterial spores that can cause infant botulism. By the time kids reach their first birthday, their digestive systems usually have developed enough to rid the body of the spores before they cause harm.

For kids older than 1, I recommend these bedtime “doses” of buckwheat honey:

• 2-5 years — ½ teaspoon
• 6-11 years — 1 teaspoon
• 12 and older — 2 teaspoons

Honey doesn’t cure colds. But it may ease your child’s symptoms until the cold goes away. Read more about baby cold remedies