Paediatrician warns: Why under-five children don’t need cough syrups

A consultant paediatrician at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Katsina, Dr. Abdurrazzaq Alege has said that children under the age of five should not be given over-the-counter cough syrups.

Dr. Alege said there was usually no need to treat a child’s cough with cough syrups as coughing helps a child remove mucous, infections, and irritants from their respiratory tracts.

He noted that most cough syrups contain multiple ingredients which can be toxic to the child’s body system.

However, he said, cough syrups can be given to a child under the supervision of a medical doctor if the child is experiencing a distress or disturbing sleep.

“For children, we don’t want anything to suppress the cough. We understand that parents worry more of the cough than the catarrh or the fever but the truth is that the cough is helping the child to manage the infection.

“Even if what we want to treat is the cause of the cough and once we start the treatment, we will explain to the parents. Part of what we explain to the parents is that the last thing that will go is the cough. If a child comes down with a fever or cold, when you start treating, you find out that the fever will go within a few days or even a day but the cough will only reduce gradually.

“For children above five years, to an extent we allow cough syrups. Why we don’t allow cough syrups for children under-five is that we realise that most of the contents of the cough syrups are not usually one but a mixture and at that age, the body is not able to metabolise most of these mixtures. Most times, it could be toxic to the body system.” Punch